Escape From Ranma Saotome
by The Anonguy Workshop
Summary: In the never-ending struggle that is the battle for Ranma Saotome's affections, the principal belligerents come to the conclusion that this is all hopeless and ridiculous. The winds of change thus begin to blow, and change was never easy.
1. Realizing your problem is Ranma Saotome

Legal Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2. Rumiko Takahashi's. Not mine. This holds no legal weight and is an excuse for me to write something silly and/or offensive.

**ESCAPE FROM RANMA SAOTOME!**

**Presented by The Anonguy Workshop**

**[Step 1: Recognizing your problem is Ranma Saotome]**  
_Akane, Ukyo, and Shampoo are sick of your shit_

Ranma Saotome's scream faded as he neared suborbital flight velocity over the City of Nerima, the young man leaving behind yet another swath of hilarity in his wake. At Ground Zero of the latest termination of hijinks, Akane Tendo, Shampoo, and Ukyo Kuonji lay on the ground in the middle of what used to be a street festival, now a ruin after events better not discussed.

Lying on her back, arms spread out, Akane watched as Ranma became a distant twinkle in the afternoon sky and let out a sigh. Like the other two girls, she was covered in dirt, her clothes were torn in places unappealing and otherwise, and some of her hair was singed. Another stupid fight that left her day ruined and Ranma on his way to the next prefecture–wait no, Ukyo definitely hit him towards Tokyo Bay this time.

"This was stupid," she said aloud.

Ukyo let out a weak, sardonic laugh. "I thought it was going well until Kuno attacked Ran-chan… and the chickens started exploding… and the Nationalists dancing in…"

"None of that stuff even matters," Akane quickly snapped. "As usual, he says something so stupid that someone has to hit him, and the only thing that surprised me this time was that you hit him before I did."

"You know, with it ending up like this, why do we always end up fighting each other over him?"

"Exactly." Akane sat up. "Ucchan, you and I can get along like perfectly civilized human beings, friends even, but the moment Ranma's on the line we both go at each other's throats and it always ends like this."

Ukyo nodded in agreement. "A whole bunch of screaming and fighting and nothing to show for the investment made. For once I'd like to get a little something-something out of all my time and effort."

Shampoo let out a brief but loud and very sharp laugh. Akane and Ukyo stared at the purple-haired foreigner.

"Don't even start," she said. "You don't know anything about time and effort."

"And I suppose you do, Miss 'Throw your Naked Self' at him?" Ukyo asked.

"Only reason Shampoo in this stupid country, dealing with stupid girls, and getting into stupid fights is airen. Would be on next boat to China otherwise."

Akane huffed loudly. "I'd pay for your tickets myself if you left now!"

"Tempting."

Ukyo smirked. "Oh poor you, stuck in an awful country for a guy who doesn't even like you. Try being his friend for ten years, and him not even realizing you were a girl or that he and his idiot father abandoned you!"

Akane snorted. "Really? You're going to play that card when the moment he said you were cute, you dropped that whole vendetta of yours and got all cuddly with him?"

"At least he thought I was cute," Ukyo sniped.

"Aiya, airen have crappy taste in girls. Look at Shampoo, so beautiful and he act like Shampoo spit poison from every orifice." Shampoo finished with a rueful snort at the end of that little pot shot.

Ukyo and Akane leveled their harshest glares at Shampoo, and it was Akane who finally formulated a comeback. "You mean you don't?"

"Sometimes Shampoo wonder, with how he gets. Shampoo come to him in bath, he becomes stammering idiot, nose doesn't even bleed. Shampoo waiting for him in bed, wearing cute underwear, he goes running away. Shampoo even invite airen for quick fun behind Cat Cafe and he act like Shampoo speaking Korean or something."

Akane and Ukyo's glares were less harsh, and more aghast. Well, Akane's was. "Is that all you can think about, doing perverted things with Ranma like that?!"

"Haven't you?" Shampoo retorted.

Akane recoiled at the very thought, her cheeks flushed scarlet. "I-I-I…!"

Ukyo too began to blush brightly. "Well, the thought has certainly crossed my mind… but…"

"With stuck up girls like you, Shampoo should have easy win, but he always pussy even when he don't have pussy." Shampoo's expression became rueful again. "Could get any other boy in this stupid country up my skirt…"

"So why don't you?" Akane recovered enough to ask, trying to get her emotions under control just a tad. "If it's so easy for you to get any man you want, then why don't you hop off and leave us alone?"

"And is this some kind of expression of your devotion?" Ukyo added before Shampoo could retort. "We have a saying in my family, 'just because you don't eat okonomiyaki everyday doesn't mean you love okonomiyaki more than anything else.' "

Shampoo glared at them, wishing for the energy to restart the earlier fight, but alas, she was too drained to leap over there and smack two bitches.

"What? No witty comeback?" Akane asked, crossing her arms bruskly.

"Not that, just wondering what two little girls like you know about real love." Shampoo settled down and loaded up her next verbal shell. "If you think you can judge Shampoo's love for airen, ask yourself what makes what you is doing better?"

Akane and Ukyo looked at each other for a brief moment, trying to gauge which of them would be the first to leap over the edge and answer the challenge.

"Shampoo is waiting…" The Chinese Amazon sing-songed, tapping a finger against her arm.

"Okay, so maybe neither of us are exactly fit to judge you, but that also means you can't judge us back." Ukyo took a second option and went for blithely dodging the question. "You're frustrated right?" Ukyo turned to look at Akane.

"I'm the Bitch Queen of Frustration, most of all with all this pointless fighting," Akane said, her tone bluntly smacking against the air.

"And Shampoo frustrated with everything in general," Shampoo said, turning away just a tad.

"And I'm frustrated with giving everything and getting nothing." Ukyo pointed at Shampoo. "And the same is for you, and Akane as well. So let's stop trying to one-up each other on who is the most frustrated and turn our attention towards fixing things."

Shampoo jumped out ahead, to present her favorite solution. "Oh that simple, you two give up airen and we go back to China."

"Yeah, not gonna happen," Akane said, shaking her head emphatically no. "I think we need some kind of compromise that leaves us with what is best for all of us."

"Well that means anything where two of us quit and the other takes him is out." Ukyo leaned back. "And I ain't about to share him."

"Pity, that solve everything," Shampoo bemoaned, though she agreed with the sentiment of not sharing him. "So what we do?"

"Well, we all are frustrated with him and our situation." Akane stretched a little as she looked up at the sky. "So, just to put it out there, why do we even bother?"

"We all love him in some way right?" Ukyo asked, wondering what Akane was hinting at.

"And where has that gotten us?" Akane gestured at the ruins of the festival. "Alone, in the ruins of another day, left feeling frustrated and tired. And he's the bar isn't he?"

"Bar?" Shampoo asked, not understanding what the hell that meant.

"Think about it, Ucchan and I are perfectly good friends except where he's involved. And the both of us are wary of you because of him as well. We're all frustrated and it's all because of him." Akane wished for the energy to stand up at that point, but she settled for a half-hearted fist pump. "So why do we need to keep giving him such control over us? I know I could live without sitting on the edge of my seat thinking he's going to do something even a quarter of the way romantic as a sign of how he feels about me."

"And I could certainly do without wasting my time trying to get him to do more than bum food off me." Ukyo nodded, getting what she was saying. "Yeah, and I know I could live without being drug into some fight because I think it'll help him recognize me as his only Fiancée!"

Shampoo looked at them both like they were nuts, before she took a deep breath to steady herself. It wouldn't due to get swept away in the mania, but they did have a point. Most of their problems could be blamed on Ranma, even if superficially.

"Shampoo can admit there is truth in what you say." Shampoo measured her words carefully, making sure to say exactly what she meant. "It true that Shampoo would not be here, stewing in frustration as airen leaves Shampoo cold yet again because of him coming to village. It true that maybe we might be friends if he not in the way. But what you saying? We all give up on him?"

"Well do we have anything to lose if we do?" Akane found she was asking herself this as much as she was the other two, but she didn't feel much weight in it. "I mean, what do we get from him now other than all of this?" Akane's gesture to their devastated day drove the question home, and made the answer a lot easier to accept.

"She's right," Ukyo said, her voice lowering to a whisper as she came to face the reality. "We can't lose something that wasn't there to be lost to begin with. All we're doing is chasing empty headed daydreams in the hopes of healing the damage we've done to ourselves."

"We is frustrated." Shampoo closed her eyes as everything began to click into place. "And airen is source of frustration."

"So why do we keep risking our comfort so he can sit back and reap the benefits of our toil?" Akane gripped her hands to fists for one brief moment as she asked.. "I say it's time we put him through the ringer and let him twist in the wind for a while. Maybe we can decide if he's worth picking back up once we can properly assess things without him in the way."

"This means we give up on him for now?" Ukyo thought it sounded half hearted, but just dropping Ranma at all seemed like a big step to take.

"Maybe for good," Shampoo said, looking Ukyo in the eyes. "If happy without Ranma, no need be miserable with him."

"Let's just agree that none of us are engaged to him, and that we'll stop fighting altogether," Akane spoke up, using what energy she had regained to shamble over towards a relative center for the three. She placed her hand out a little, looking at the others. "I renounce Ranma Saotome as my Fiancé."

"I'm in, as long as you both are," Ukyo said, maneuvering to place her hand on top of Akane's. "I also renounce Ranma Saotome as my Fiancé."

Shampoo looked at the two hands, then up at their owners. If she had the energy, she might have been tempted to try and run away and pretend like she tricked them. But she didn't and they'd easily cancel their renouncing of Ranma if she had been able to try. However, this was still a big decision for her…

But lord was Shampoo tired of being the invader, the enemy to unite against, the one who must be defeated. It sucked and it hurt that she couldn't make friends with them at all before, but now they were extending an olive branch to her. They were willing to remove the obstacle between them and let bygones be bygones. And thus her decision was…

"Shampoo in. But if you is give up halfway, Shampoo will crush without mercy." She made it over and placed her hand on top of the others. "Shampoo renounce Ranma Saotome as airen."

A pregnant silence followed, as the three girls stood with their hands piled over one another's. For long lingering seconds the doubt reigned, as if each was expecting the others to declare them suckers and run off laughing. As those critical seconds passed, relief began to set in.

"We were all thinking the same thing just now," Shampoo said with a bit of a smirk.

"That one of us was going to cut and run?" Ukyo replied before giving Akane a look.

"Hey, I'm the one who thought of this, I should be surprised that you two didn't." And Akane genuinely was.

Shampoo snorted at the absurdity of it. "Tomboy lot of things but she can't be dishonest to save life."

"So… what happens now?" Ukyo tentatively put forth.

Akane shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I could definitely go for a bath right now. You're welcome to come along."

It was far easier for Ukyo and Shampoo to agree with that, at least.

As Ranma finally swam to the shore of Tokyo Bay, she couldn't help the sensation that weighed on his-turned-her shoulders. Did… did someone just yank the world out from under her?

With a shrug of her shoulders, she forgot all about it and headed for home.

* * *

Heaving a deep sigh, Akane luxuriated in the bath, allowing the hot water to do its job and wash away her aches. She had really gone and done it, and now she had to live with the fallout. But that would be a slow falling thing; the axe perched above her head, because she wasn't going to shout it from the rooftops just yet.

It was enough that the three of them knew and reached their agreement, and as such they didn't need to tell him just yet he had been dumped. Not until they could make sure they could live up to their bold words and declarations. But those were things for the morrow, as she really just wanted to focus on recovering her strength.

Deities above knew she'd need it.

That was the funny part in all of this, the principle riders had shut this little merry go round down. It was time to turn away from Ranma Saotome and move towards a new light, a new source of happiness. Where they would find it and how it would turn out would be half the fun.

And maybe the other half would be making him squirm, and twist. To see his face twist and twitch as he wants what he can no longer have. Even now, alone in the bath, she could still feel the lingering effects of the fight that day. It had been different from other fights, more fiercely charged and tightly contested. They almost never went that hard, that heavy, that desperate at one another before. But now they had reached a settlement, one to usher in a new era of peace and prosperity to them all.

It was unbelievable to think that they had done it, that they had finally cast off that loathsome engagement. How none of them chickened out even a tiny bit was amazing to her, but that was because the act was still fresh in the bones, the reaction had yet to fade away. But there in the bath, she could relish her freedom, even as a darker part of her fantasized about the look on Ranma's face when she told him they were through.

And then after that! She was free to do as _she_ wanted. She could do what she wanted to do, get involved with the people _she_ wanted to involve herself with. Fall in love with whomever _she_ wanted to fall in love with!

Raising a hand from the bath water until it was firmly over head, she pulled her closed into a fist and savored the feel of power that coursed through her. Her energy was returning, her fatigue was going away, and her strength was coming back. Everything was right there for the taking, all _she_ had to do was reach out and grab it.

"Akane-chan, Shampoo is here to see you," Kasumi called politely through the door.

Hadn't even been two hours. "Okay, I'll be down in-"

Shampoo walked through the door, destroying it. Well it was better than the wall, though it didn't do much for Akane's indignation.

"Okay, why did you do that?"

"Great Grandmama threw Shampoo out. Live here now."

Akane stared blankly at Shampoo, a litany of reactions to this revelation piling up at the back of her mind even as she flatly replied, "What."

_Not 15 minutes ago…_

Having emerged from her bath, Shampoo stepped out of the bathroom and was on her way to her room to sleep off the rest of this roller-coaster ride of a day, when Cologne appeared before her.

"Shampoo, I heard that you ran into some trouble again at the festival. Don't worry yourself; I happen to have another idea for you… to…" She trailed off when she saw that something was definitely off about her Great Granddaughter.

Shampoo stared at her Great Grandmother, the unceasing scream at the realization that she'd have to explain herself to her matriarchal elder almost deafening between her ears.

Apparently Cologne could hear it too, because her buggy eyes narrowed. "You are too easy to read, Great Granddaughter. Did something happen?"

Shampoo's mind raced. What was she supposed to say to her, that she was done with Ranma? That she was wasting the best years of her life (and fertility) on a guy who couldn't even give her the courtesy of being aroused when she came onto him?

Amazon Law demanded that she bring Ranma home, and now she was going to tell the highest law of her village, her own great grandmother who had so much hope for her success, that she was no longer going to be party to this Sisyphian effort?

Eh, YOLO.

"I gave up on Ranma, I don't want him anymore," she plainly revealed.

Cologne pointed down the stairs. "Get out."

_15 minutes and one brief explanation later…_

Akane, now seated at the living room table across from Shampoo, wore a dumbstruck expression on her face.

"Just like that?!" She honestly could not believe it.

Shampoo shrugged her shoulders. "Law very specific, must chase Ranma to ends of Earth to marry, can't go back until then."

"And giving up means not even Granny can support you…"

Shampoo nodded. "Shampoo don't care, though."

Akane blinked a few times. "You don't? Why?"

"Saw bright side."

_13 minutes and one explanation ago…_

"What do you mean Shampoo is now an outsider?! Old bag, I will not stand for this injustice!" Mousse passionately yelled at a coat rack. "And when did you get so thin?!"

Cologne popped Mousse one good with her staff as Shampoo watched from the doorway of the Cat Cafe. "It is the law, if she refuses to marry the outsider she has let down the pride of the village-"

Mousse stopped her right there. "Wait, Shampoo doesn't want to marry Ranma?!" Pushing his glasses over his eyes, he whirled upon his purple-haired vision of beauty. "Oh Shampoo, I knew you would see the-"

Before Shampoo could punch him him out a window, Cologne clubbed Mousse even harder, stopping him cold. "None of that, the last thing we need is for you to have an excuse to chase her if you get your skull caved in."

Shampoo gave pause. "Wait, you mean he-"

"You are an outsider now, we will have nothing to do with you. Not I, not Mousse, no one of Joketsuzoku."

"I object!" Mousse yelled before he was turned to a duck with a hastily summoned bucket of water. As he quacked angrily, Cologne turned to order Shampoo out, only to find she was already gone, and down the street cheering and hollering.

_I've lost count of how much time has passed…_

"So, you're not actually upset that you've been abandoned by your village," Akane said flatly.

"Small price to pay for never having to deal with Mousse again," Shampoo replied with honest cheer in her voice. "This good idea, kill two birds with one stone!"

"But you're homeless in a foreign country," Akane pointed out.

"It okay, Shampoo stay here, be good guest."

That was not a request, and as cheerful as Shampoo was, Akane rightly deduced that the Chinese girl was holding her accountable for her newly acquired homelessness.

"Oh if you have nowhere else to go, you're more than welcome here, you poor thing," Kasumi said gently as she set out snacks for Akane and Shampoo.

"Thank you," Shampoo replied politely.

"Ah… but why did Granny ask you to leave? It seems so sudden."

"A little, yeah," Akane said gamely. After all, Shampoo was still only wearing the towel she had stepped out of her shower with.

"Shampoo give up engagement to Ranma, outsider now."

For the first time since her hair had been shorn off by Ryoga, Akane saw Kasumi so surprised that she lobbed her tray of treats across the room. This time, Ranma wasn't there to catch them. Oh yes, telling everyone that she was done with Ranma too was going to be spectacular. Who knew, maybe she'd even get a reaction out of _Nabiki._

* * *

"I can't believe I agreed to this."

Ukyo was regretting the deal already, as she made her way from her bathroom to the back office of her restaurant, which had closed up early. A moment of weakness, and she had been convinced to swear off Ran-chan by her very rivals for his affections.

"I'm so stupid. Akane-chan wouldn't dare to be so sneaky, but that Shampoo! She's probably out looking for him now to tell him how Akane and I dumped him!" In mid-rant she sat down at her computer and brought up her paperwork. After today's disaster, she still needed to write up the product she ended up wasting during the free-for-all.

"Come tomorrow," she lamented, "The Amazons will be gone back to China and Ranma will be with them. This is just the worst…"

Or maybe, she less hysterically assured herself, even Shampoo was legit about The Great Ranma Ditching. She really wanted to believe that.

Nevertheless, the numbers she soon saw on the screen took her mind away from the panic she was flying in and out of. Perhaps it was because she was desperate to do anything to take her mind off Ranma, but she immediately noticed something wrong about her waste numbers.

"… These are way too high."

Pulling up a calculator app, a real one of her own out of one desk drawer and an abacus from yet another, she began crunching numbers while entering them into her worksheets. Flour, vegetables, sauce, meat, one by one she entered the items in and when she hit enter, she was stunned at the result.

"That's a month of product in a week!" she shrieked. "No wonder I'm barely in the black!" The numbers staring back at her forced her to examine everything that she knew about her typical businessweek. "D-Do I really waste that much _just_ on Ran-chan?"

The answer stared back at her with an almost mocking indifference. The times he came over to grab a quick bite and hang out a bit, or bringing him lunch at school, or making new okonomiyakis to replace ones lost in scuffles. Or the times he seemed bummed about something so she'd whip him up one, or using them as notes to him. Even the ones she used as challenge letters to Akane or Shampoo popped in through her mind as she came to several realizations.

Okonomiyaki was relatively cheaper food product to maintain due to buying in bulk deals, plus how little it took to make a batch of batter in comparison to other things like maintaining a noodle joint. That was part of the lure of it; cheap to maintain, easier to turn a profit because of how many you could feasibly crank out for even a fraction of the overhead costs. But there was the particular rub to all this, and what was absolutely killing her profits…

She wasn't getting a single yen back on a month's worth of products!

Furiously, she went over her math and redid the numbers, this time adding in small fee to see what she'd have gained from this product waste. Again, she was left stunned, almost numb as she stared at number before her. 10 freakin' yen, just 10 FUCKING yen and she'd be further into the black instead of hovering at the red line. It didn't take her long to realize that she didn't need to run anymore numbers, with such a low variable showing that much of a shift, things would only get more ridiculous.

"Thank you Akane-chan." Ukyo whispered, breathing out a sigh of relief. Her rival's decision to talk her into dumping Ranma meant it would be easier to cut him off the free food teat. "Oh boy, that means I have to tell him…"

A loud rapping noise stirred her from contemplations, and she got up to see what was causing it.

"Speaking of Cao Cao," she muttered to herself, contemplating waving at him through the window and going back to her office. But no, she had to get through this now or else she was liable to lose her nerve. She walked over and opened the door, but only just a tad. "I don't know if me hitting you earlier knocked out your ability to read sugar, but I'm closed."

"That's not stopped you letting me in before." The redhead retorted, wishing she could have gotten some hot water before now.

Ukyo turned away to hide her wince, as her old stupidity came to bite her in the ass. "Well come on in then, we got some stuff to talk about anyways."

There was that bad feeling again, but Ranma instantly ignored it as she slipped inside. Sure Ucchan was the one that knocked her out of the park this time, but she was easily the most forgiving and forgivable of her Fiancées. She had nothing to worry about.

"Here." Ukyo offered her a glass of warm water, which she graciously took and became a he again. "Take a seat over there?"

Ranma took a seat, shaking some water out of his hair as Ukyo went behind the griddle. "So," she began, "I just got out of the bath and was doing some numbers, and uh… I have a waste issue."

"So, what you need help taking out the garbage more?" Ranma asked.

"It's a shorthand term for any expenditure I make and I don't make any money back." She tapped the griddle with one of her spatulas to draw his attention. "I have to buy all the ingredients for the okonomiyaki, so I have to sell them so the cost of the fixings doesn't start hurting my regular bottom line."

Ranma stared at her blankly, showing he didn't quite grasp it. That or he was incredibly hungry and the mention of food zoned him out a little…

"In simple terms, I'm spending a lot of money but not seeing any money back because, well, I don't charge you for the okonomiyaki you eat. Or the ones I use for other things." She sighed, as she steeled herself for this next part. "If it was just a very small amount, I could deal with it, but I ran through the math… and just last week I wasted a month's worth of supplies. I'm now buying a month's shipment of toppings, flour, and what not every week and that stuff adds up."

"So? Just raise your prices for a bit, it'll be fine." If he understood any of what she was saying, Ranma's face didn't show it. "But since I'm here, can I have some?"

It was like a jet of cold water straight to her face, it was like he didn't care. No, it was that he didn't understand enough TO care and he wasn't about to break his comfortable stride for her. She bit back an angry retort and looked at him pointedly. "Do you have any money?"

"U-Ucchan!" He sounded hurt, but she didn't find herself particularly caring at the moment.

"Ran-chan, look. I can't keep absorbing the costs for just giving away my product. In another month or so, I'm basically going to be out of business." She breathed out a sigh, and looked at him fully. How scared he looked, but she couldn't read if that was fear for her or fear of losing a free meal whenever he wanted it.

"Can't I just work here as a waitress? Business always seems to be good when my girl side is here." It was a sensible reply after all, and one she considered for a very brief amount of time.

"No." It was clear he didn't want to start paying, and even then, he'd be likely to sneak a few samples here and there. If she couldn't trust him to understand what was going on with her, she couldn't really trust him with such an important job. "I'm sorry, but I have to cut you off, Sugar."

"But-!"

"But nothin'! I'm going down the drain fast, and the fastest means of my survival is wrenching you off the free food train." Plus, getting indebted to him would make things even harder for her in the future. It was almost funny in a way, she'd have jumped at the chance to have him around earlier this morning… but that was before she decided that she had to break free. The money situation only further helped this decision.

He mumbled something she didn't quite catch.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that?"

"It's weird, the C-c-cat Cafe was closed when I stopped by for some ramen." In fact, the door was boarded over even. "And now this…" He kept talking but her ears failed to catch it as she came to a simple revelation.

Shampoo had stayed true to her word! And with that simple thought, all of her reservations for their little plan disappeared. She took a steadying breath as she looked into his confused eyes.

"Are you ok?" He did seem genuinely alarmed; she might have had a weird expression on her face.

"I'm fine." She took one more breath, gathering up her strength. "Ran-c-, no, Ranma, I think it's time we called the engagement off."

Ranma blinked, like one would expect an owl too. "Come again?"

"Let's be honest: You don't really want to marry me, and as I examine things as they are now, I can't afford to marry you anyways. So, to sum it up, I'm not your Fiancée anymore, and as such, I'll ask you to leave now." Unknown to Ukyo, her right hand balled into a fist, as she stared a hole through him.

Ranma was having a difficult time processing this. Was Ucchan… dumping him? "This… this is some kind of joke right? Or are you still angry about today? It wasn't my fault, you know how Kuno is, he attacked first-"

"Ranma, it's not just about today, it's about a lot of days… every day since I first came here to deal with you. You… you're my friend, and I won't forget that, but the engagement ain't gonna work and today helped me realize that. I'm sorry."

His brain was full of fuck. "Ucchan…"

Ukyo took a deep, reaffirming breath. "So unless you plan to pay for some Okonomiyaki, I'll again have to ask you to leave."

Ranma stared in disbelief. Numbly, as though not quite himself, he got up and walked out. Watching him go, Ukyo suddenly felt a stab of lingering guilt, and almost opened her mouth to stop him, but then she remembered how much money she'd be making without him leeching off her stock, and her resolve completely solidified.

"I did it," she whispered to herself as the door swung closed. "I… I cut him off."

She had doubted, hesitated and nearly faltered, but it was done. Now she could focus on what was important to her.

"If Shampoo can do it, so can I." Walking up to the door of her restaurant, Ukyo shut it behind Ranma.

* * *

The door to Akane's closet swung open, and Shampoo began to peer around inside in search of clothes. It brought her back to a conclusion she made about the girl a ways back. While not the most skilled martial artist, and annoying in every way to her, Shampoo certainly admired Akane's fashion sense and the wardrobe she kept with.

"It's really crazy to think," Akane mused as Shampoo looked through the clothes. "Just a couple hours ago, we were battling like we were going to kill each other and now here you are." She tried to pace her thoughts a tad, after all with the ball rolling; it was only a matter of time before her own confrontation with her promise.

"It insane, Shampoo not even believe is happening." Shampoo looked at a particularly cute blouse and thought about how it'd be to wear it. "What think? Is good look for Shampoo?"

"I guess," Akane said, picturing the bubbly Amazon in the top, but found it odd to her mind, "Though my clothes might be too cutesy for you."

"That ok, Shampoo all about cute." To demonstrate her point, Shampoo reached up and pulled down a sunhat from higher in the closet and put it on. "Nihao?"

_Maybe a little too cute_, Akane thought as she laughed a little at the display. She shook that thought away. "Well as long as you like it, you can wear it until we can get you some more clothes."

Taking off the hat, Shampoo went back into the closet. "You too, too kind. Shampoo need new job, though. Is loopy doctor still around? I make good money as assistant to him before."

Akane blinked a few times. "Actually, I don't know…"

"Eh, if not I work at Spatula Girl place. She pay good, right?"

"Eh…" Akane shrugged her shoulders. "You might have to ask, I never inquired."

Shampoo finally found something worth putting on, and stepped out of the closet again. "How these?"

They were a pair of shorts that were clearly a bit tighter for her than they were Akane, a fact that Akane found herself lingering on briefly as the Chinese girl turned around to show off how well they clung to her curvy hips.

"They might be a little small for you," she replied.

Shampoo turned her back to Akane and swung her hips. "Shampoo think they perfect. Bring all boys to the yard."

Akane looked aside, to avoid staring at her hypnotic hinny swaying side to side. "Don't you start with that kind of talk. Ranma always got like that whenever he wound up in my clothes."

When she looked back, she recoiled when she saw Shampoo looking over her shoulder, on the verge of laughing. "R-Ranma wore your clothes?"

"Back when he first showed up, yeah. He never hesitated to talk about how the hips were too wide, or the chest was too loose, either."

Shampoo gave Akane a look, and then down at her shorts. "You hips about same size as Shampoo's, very nice. Got cute butt, too."

If Akane didn't know better, she'd swear she was in the Twilight Zone what with Shampoo complimenting her. "Oh, thanks…"

"Spatula girl has nice body too. Not curvy like Shampoo or with good hips and butt like you, but still very nice. Ranma got bad, bad taste in what he think attractive. Shampoo think that because they don't look like his girl side."

Akane snickered. "Well he always boasts about how hot his girl half is."

"Really not that hot," Shampoo admitted. "Shampoo got nicer body, bigger boobs too."

When Shampoo cupped her breasts for emphasis, Akane looked away with a mild flush on her cheeks. "Yes, I'm sure they're bigger than everyone's bar Kasumi's, now can you put them away?"

Shampoo smirked. "Aw, jealous? Or just like what you see?"

"Put on a shirt!" Akane snapped at her with a much darker flush.

Shampoo laughed and rather than put on a shirt, she continued to show off by folding her arms underneath her chest. "It's okay to be envious, but you still growing girl, yes? I'm sure you will be almost as good as Shampoo one day."

Akane rolled her eyes. "Please, no more!"

An idea then illuminated Shampoo's eyes, and her teasing smile became a touch sinister. "In fact, Shampoo know Ancient Chinese technique to help."

"Really?" Akane quickly schooled herself, in vain. "I mean, I'm sure you do."

"Yes, behold Shampoo ancient massage technique!" Shampoo declared before she pounced on Akane playfully.

"Ah, no!" Akane squealed as Shampoo's "massage" turned out to be little more than an absurdly effective tickling of her ribs and sides.

As Akane was laughing a thousand deaths, downstairs Ranma walked in to find Kasumi cleaning up the mess Shampoo's surprising revelation had caused her to make. Seeing food all over the floor, ruined, just broke his hungry heart even further.

"Kasumi, what happened?" He asked.

The eldest of the Tendo girls looked up. "Oh, Ranma-kun you're home! I'm sorry, I was given quite a shock today when Shampoo came over."

Ranma grew aghast. Something Shampoo did gave _Kasumi_ a shock? What could she have done to make gentle, kind, and completely oblivious Kasumi react so much as to cause a mess of something? Rather than ask, Ranma immediately jumped onto the logic train… express to Insane Troll City.

"First Ukyo dumps me, and now Shampoo's scaring Kasumi… oh no. That's it! Shampoo has done something to make Ukyo hate me, and now she… Akane!" Ranma grabbed Kasumi's shoulders. "Where's Akane?!"

Kasumi would've explained the situation regarding Shampoo's change of heart to him, but she was currently in shock about Ukyo jumping off the Fiancée bandwagon too. "U-upstairs."

And he was off like a gunshot, running upstairs in less than a second and charging for Akane's door. Throwing it open, he stormed in. "Akane! Shampoo's trying to-!"

There was Akane laying on her bed, pinned down and straddled over by Shampoo. Shampoo was topless and in a pair of shorts that were perfectly taut around her backside, and both her hands were up the t-shirt that Akane wore as if she was feeling… up… her…

Ranma's brain stopped, unable to process beyond what he was seeing. As he waited for it to respond, a positively livid Akane got up from the bed and reset his brain with a punch that launched him out the room, bounced him off the wall, and sent him tumbling back down the stairs.

A few minutes later, after Shampoo finally put a t-shirt on, Ranma came walking up the stairs and calmly knocked on the door. Akane walked over and opened it. "What do you want?"

Ranma just kind of stared at her as he answered, "Shampoo brainwashed Ukyo and Ukyo dumped me."

"No I didn't," Shampoo pointedly responded.

Ranma fully rebooted and pointed at her. "Yes you did! Why else would Ukyo just dump me AND stop giving me free Okonomiyaki?!"

Akane rolled her eyes.

Shampoo remained lukewarm, but direct. "Shampoo think because Spatula Girl no like you anymore."

"Or maybe because you brainwashed her so you can have me for yourself, and you're going to do it to Akane too!" Ranma assumed a fighting stance. "I won't let you!"

"But Shampoo no want Ranma anymore either," the Ex-Amazon pointed out.

"That's what you would…!" Ranma stopped. "… You… what…?"

If Ranma Saotome's brain was a manual transmission, the gears would have been grinding and smoking due to the lack of a clutch. Well, actually from the fact that Ranma never drove stick before in his life.

"Shampoo no like want Ranma anymore."

At this point, punching himself in the face would've done him no good. For a few seconds he stood there, a deer in the proverbial headlights, trying to comprehend what was going on. Pride and ego howled, fear roared, logic and reason whispered unheard in the deafening din, and despair lead the unholy choir that raged in his brain before something finally got through.

"YOU TOO?!" He finally yelled.

"Yes, got thrown out of village and everything, but worth it." Akane could almost swear Shampoo was enjoying this now. In fact, she was.

"But… but you can't just stop _liking_ me!"

"Shampoo already did… thirty-five minutes ago." Oh yes she was, Akane could see it now.

"What for?!" Ranma demanded. "This is unbelievable! You've been doing nothing but fighting over me and now you just-just _give up?! _This is a joke, right? Or-Or some twisted attempt to make me choose you?" Ranma sounded almost desperate. "You _can't _just stop liking me!"

"Says who, Ranma?"

"Damn right says Ranma!" Ranma shouted indignantly.

Shampoo looked off to the side to Akane. "Who he think he is?"

Akane shrugged her shoulders. "I've been asking myself that since he came here."

He began to pace around. "I mean… you… doesn't…" Running his fingers through his hair, he held out both hands towards her. "What about all the times before, where you'd stop at nothing to get me, that doesn't mean anything anymore?!"

"It mean everything, why Shampoo not want date anymore," Shampoo explained. "Not worth the trouble."

Ranma stopped; she was saying the same thing Ukyo was saying. "Wait… you've been brainwashed too!"

"Oh my God," Akane whispered.

"That's it! This is all some kind of scheme by-by someone else to mess with my head!" Ranma was pitifully grasping at straws now. "Kuno! Or maybe Mousse got into the really good stuff! Maybe Taro's back! Yeah! He's going to catch me off guard by making everything not make sense anymore, the crafty bastard!"

He clenched a fist. "Don't worry, I'll figure this out Shampoo! Everything will be back to normal soon-!"

"OH MY GOD, ENOUGH!" Akane yelled. "Ranma, Shampoo and Ukyo don't love you anymore, so get over it-!"

The door was all but knocked off its hinges, as Soun and Genma interrupted the entire scene altogether by barging in.

"This is wonderful!" Soun shouted while Genma, in Panda form, waved a sign that said about as much. "Ranma, my boy! The playing field is now clear!"

Ranma whirled upon Soun and his Pop. "W-what?!"

Taking one side, Soun patted him on the shoulder, as Genma wept tears of joy at the other. "It's been months, many months, since this crazy love triangle or square or whatever first started. But look, the interlopers have given up their claim! You have no other Fiancées after you!"

At the Kuno estate, Kodachi suddenly felt neglected… more than usual.

Genma held up a sign reading "You can now marry Akane with no interference!"

Ranma, being angry and irrational as he was, immediately stuck his foot into his own mouth, by kicking himself in the ass.

"I DON'T WANT TO BE STUCK WITH JUST THAT UNCUTE TOMBOY!"

Shampoo looked from Ranma to Akane, and then back to him as he realized what he'd just said. Turning away from the horrified realization engraving itself into Ranma's visage, she looked back to Akane, who was slowly drawing in a deep breath.

Genma flipped his sign around to read "Idiot", as Soun prepared to go all demon transformation to intimidate the young man to take back his words. That all stopped when Akane began laughing.

**_"PFFFFFFFTHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"_**

Soun and Genma, startled, turned to face the youngest Tendo. She fell onto her bed, throwing her head back and laughing hysterically as if Ranma had actually said something good instead of his usual Ranmaisms.

She fell over to her side, pounding her fist onto the bed and occasionally burying her face into the mattress to muffle her loudest peals. Soun, unsure of what to do, tried to start laughing as well hoping this was one of those American sitcoms where everyone randomly laughed as a group and it was never awkward. When no one else started, he trailed off and cowered behind Ranma.

Genma too grew a bit nervous, sweaty even and he too fell back behind Ranma, and held onto Soun in fear.

"A-Akane?" Ranma asked tentatively, as she began to calm down.

Pushing herself up and still giggling, Akane calmed down and stared at Ranma.

"I hate you," she said with all of her heart. She was perfectly calm, elated even. He made this easier than she'd ever expected.

And for the first time since Ranma's spiral of confusion began, he received the message clearer than any he had ever received before. "W-what?"

"You're a useless, arrogant jerk who only thinks about himself. I hate you," Akane replied as she got up. "I'm standing right here, and you're upset about Shampoo and Ukyo dumping you. I'm still standing right here, and you tell Daddy that you don't want to be stuck with _just me_. I'm standing _right here_, in front of you, and you have the absolute _gall_ to say that."

She pointed to the exact spot she stood. "Right here, I'm always right here in front of you when you do or say something stupid, mean, or perverted. You never consider my feelings, because you can't consider anyone or anything but yourself."

Ranma recoiled, though not as dramatically as he normally would. "H-hey-!"

"Don't you say anything! You're not going to say anything until I'm done!" Akane quickly cut in, elation replaced with a measured indignation. "I didn't want to marry you in the first place but when you weren't acting like a spoiled, narcissistic bastard I almost, _almost_ thought maybe you could grow into someone I could love. But you. Don't. Want to."

"But-!" Ranma tried again, but Akane silenced him with a furious look.

"I told you to _not say anything until I'm done!_" Akane hissed. She stepped forward, with none of her usual anger. This wasn't her normal tirade of frustration, this was the opposite: catharsis, an airing of grievances and concerns. "You didn't want me, or Shampoo or Ukyo. You want girls to chase after you! You want to be the center of attention! You want to feel like a man! I'm tired of it, they're tired of it, so I convinced them and we all agreed to drop you because this is so stupid!"

Ranma shook at her words. Even more shaken was Soun, who could not believe that the patience of his daughter had finally run out. "Akane, what about the schools-?!" He stopped when Akane pointed at him.

"You don't say anything either!" She lowered her hand and sucked in a deep breath as she turned her attention back to Ranma. "I'm tired of living for you, you stupid idiot. I want to live _my _own life. Where _I_ am happy. _Without_ you. So I'm _done_ with you." She turned away and walked back to her closet.

"So everyone not Shampoo, get out of my room, _now."_

Ranma just kind of stood there, as he tried to find a way to reassert himself. He was the bad guy in this? Suddenly all the crap that she pulled on him didn't matter?! The abuse that he suffered at her hands, feet, and tables were just a drop in the bucket compared to the things he allegedly did to her?!

Fists clenching and huffing loudly, Ranma prepared to fire back. He was going to hit back with all the times she hit him and called him a pervert and-

"I just told you to leave." Akane was holding a glass of water, picked up off her desk.

Ranma stared at it, and his eyes grew wide.

Akane tossed the water onto Shampoo.

The piercing shriek Ranma let out jolted Kasumi from her shock. Looking for the source, she caught the briefest glimpse of Ranma running past her and out onto the patio, chased by Shampoo in cat form. Stopping at the door as Ranma put a him-shaped hole in the wall surrounding the Tendo home and Dojo, Shampoo's tail pointed upward in satisfaction, and she turned to trot to the kitchen.

* * *

"Where did we go wrong, Saotome?!" Soun bawled at the top of the stairs as Shampoo, once more human, made her way back up them. "They were such a lovely couple! Full of youth and fire!"

"No Discipline, absolutely none," Genma's sign read as Shampoo casually strolled past them and went back into what was now her room.

"You dad is an idiot," Shampoo said as she closed the door behind her.

"If you only knew," Akane lamented before she did a double-take. "Are you just a nudist or something?!"

Shampoo looked perplexed for a brief moment, then down at herself. "What?" She looked back at her. "Shampoo perfectly fine with body and someone get Shampoo wet and make lose clothes."

Akane palmed her forehead. "Sorry, I just wanted to get him out of here." She sat down on her bed. "Thanks, though."

The Chinese girl smiled. "No big deal, Shampoo actually like making Ranma freak out."

"I never would've guessed."

Shampoo sat down next to her. "You okay?"

Akane let out a sigh, and then smiled. "I feel like I just got a big weight off my back. I said everything I wanted to say to Ranma, and it feels really good."

Smiling herself, Shampoo hooked an arm around Akane and pulled her into a hug. "Good! Shampoo would have ended tomboy if pussied out and got all weepy about dumping Ranma." She pulled Akane into a tighter hug. "Now we can focus on fun, fun things and have happy times, yes? Even find boys we like."

Mid-cuddle with Shampoo, Akane let out a sigh and relaxed enough to return it.

"Yeah… boys we like…" she mumbled to herself.

* * *

A/N: Why hello. We are The Anonguy Workshop. A group of collaborators who will publish stories that mess with you in some way. We hope that you like what we dish out~.


	2. Making way for The Homo Superior

Legal Disclaimer: How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

**ESCAPE FROM RANMA SAOTOME!**

**Presented by The Anonguy Workshop**

**[Step 2: Making Way for the Homo Superior]  
**_A lesson in quitting the dick_

"Shampoo no understand why we is not in bed right now, sleeping everything off," The Ex-Amazon said as she and Akane made their way towards Ukyo's place.

"There's two reasons, really," Akane said, looking sidelong at the other girl. "We check and make sure that Ukyo is staying legit since Ranma ran off into the night, and we get this whole job thing out of the way. Sooner we get you a job, the less anyone else can complain."

"Shampoo sure they not argue with Nice Girl about it."

"It's not Kasumi I'm worried about," Akane assured her new friend. "It's getting annoyed by Daddy or Nabiki about it." Especially the latter, she couldn't wait for Nabiki to get back from that class trip she was on.

"Plus give Shampoo leg up on Ranma." Shampoo laughed a little. "At least Shampoo pay own way, unlike freeloader before."

Akane nodded with a thoughtful hum, before she saw Ucchan's come into view. "Okay, we're coming up on it now. Try not to put too much pressure on her, and maybe we'll get you job."

"Shampoo hope it work." Shampoo didn't want to express any doubts on Ukyo just yet. That was better left to saying in front of her so she can at least see the reaction.

"It will." Akane said, without any major reason too. Reaching the door, she knocked on it in a slightly urgent manner.

"Oh hey you two," Ukyo said after she answered her door, strangely still awake. "Didn't expect you to be by at all."

"Figured we'd stop in, discuss a few things with you," Akane said, playing things off. "Keep you up to date on things."

"I heard from Ranma the Cat Cafe closed down," Ukyo said to Shampoo, offering some sympathy. "I guess the old ghoul didn't take your decision well."

"Eh, it went how Shampoo expected," Shampoo said with no real bitterness evident. "We come in and continue talk yes?"

"Oh, shoot sorry, sorry!" Ukyo had been caught off guard by them showing up she had forgotten her manners. "Come on in and take a seat somewhere."

The two walked in, both visitors taking a seat by the griddle. "Ranma was flipping out when he came home, what exactly did you say to him?" Akane asked.

Ukyo went behind the griddle, and started it up. "Just that I couldn't keep feeding him for free, and that the engagement is off. I tried to let him down as easy as I could–he's still my friend and all. He just left, all quiet and stuff, didn't say a word after I asked him to leave."

Shampoo smirked. "That funny. Ranma came in saying Shampoo brainwash Spatula girl, think I do same to Tomboy."

"Well you can't blame him for thinking that, remember that jewel?" Ukyo pointed out.

Akane certainly did, having been reminded of it with Ranma's idiotic outburst earlier. "Anyway, with Granny gone back to China and the Cate Cafe closed down, Shampoo's staying with me."

"But Shampoo no mooch, so need job."

Ukyo grabbed some ingredients from the cooler behind her. "Hang on, you're fine with her living with you?"

Akane nodded. "She's my responsibility, now."

"What's going to happen to Ranma and his Pop?"

Akane shrugged her shoulders. "It's not really my problem anymore, they can go over it with Daddy."

With practiced skill and superb speed, Ukyo whipped up a batch of okonomiyaki batter and began pouring out some onto the now hot griddle. "That's going to be awkward, I have room over here."

"No, it's fine," Akane said.

Shampoo nodded in agreement. "Shampoo want to stay there. Mess with Ranma head long time."

Ukyo rolled her eyes. "You're enjoying this, huh sugar?"

"Always have!"

In hindsight, Akane noted, for someone who loved Ranma much as she claimed, Shampoo certainly did enjoy hurting him at every opportunity… mainly with a well-aimed bicycle. Putting her hands up on the counter, she drummed her fingers and let out a small laugh.

"I exploded at him, when I told him," she admitted to Ukyo.

"Oh my, I never would've envisioned that," Ukyo cheekily replied.

"I didn't hit him, though."

Ukyo, cheekiness muted, gave Akane a surprised look. "Come again?"

"He said something stupid when our Dads got heard you and Shampoo dumped him, and I just got so angry that I didn't even want to hit him. I laughed, that's how angry I was." She continued drumming her fingers. "He said he didn't want to be just stuck with me as his fiancée."

Maybe, Ukyo thought, she was too nice. "He said that?!"

Shampoo confirmed it with a nod. "Ranma say 'don't want to be stuck with uncute tomboy', when crybaby old man tell him to marry."

"That ass!" Ukyo yelled.

Akane waved it off. "Don't worry about it, I said everything I needed to." There was no point getting mad at him about it now, she had gotten everything out that she had wanted to say.

"Damn girl, I dunno if I could have held back on smashing his face into the ground if he said something that insensitive to me." Ukyo shook her head as she flipped the okonomiyaki over, wondering if all the ideas she had about Akane were viewed from the side that got annoyed at Ranma to the point of exploding.

"Well, I was about to hit him, when I remembered that I still had to tell him about me." Akane leaned back in her seat and laughed. "It felt so much better than any of the times I hit him."

"Shampoo think it because you know he no longer problem," Shampoo pointed out, drawing their attention. "You hit him, he come back because he too too stupid not think that hitting is bad. But now, you is telling him he not wanted. He come back now, no more worry about his feelings."

Akane nodded her head to the former Amazon's reasoning. "You're right. How he feels about me or anything else isn't my concern anymore. It's like I'm finally free of all this crap going on."

"Not entirely, I'd wager." Ukyo said, serving the pair an okonomiyaki each. "But you pulled yourself free from the anchor so now all that's left is swimming back to shore."

"Oh everything isn't all smiles and sunshine yet, but yes at least I'm pulling myself free." Akane fished out enough yen for both okonomiyaki and set it down on the counter. "Thanks for the food."

"You don't need to pay." Ukyo looked down at the money in confusion.

"Isn't that what got you in trouble with Ranma?" Akane asked, smiling a little. "I'd like for us to be friends and I don't want you to replace one person who'd abuse your trust with another."

"I, uh, thanks." Ukyo smiled a bit, relieved and feeling just a tiny bit awkward. She took the yen and let them eat their okonomiyaki.

"So, give Shampoo job?"

Ukyo glanced around the restaurant and the presently empty tables she could already envision being full with the new business set to come in now following today. "Well, I could use the help, with all the people Cat Cafe just lost they'll be coming my way."

And with whatever idea she knew Ranma was going to come back with in an attempt to woo her or any of them back. After all, he went hard at getting Shampoo to love him again, there was no telling what he'd do to become the star of his own show again.

Shampoo nodded. "Could help expand menu, too. Shampoo good, good cook."

Ukyo's eyebrows rose. "Expanding the menu, huh? That would help scoop up Cat Cafe's revenue for sure. When can you start?"

"Tomorrow," Shampoo quickly replied.

"Well then, you're hired," Ukyo said with a cheerful smile. "Be here by nine a.m. so we can get started on your training."

Akane had already eaten half of her okonomiyaki. "That went easier than I expected."

Ukyo smirked. "That's a theme today, huh?"

"Things never go this well, something's going to happen soon and it's going to be terrible," Akane lamented.

"Sounds like you speak from experience," Ukyo noted.

"Well, you two should know about how things go from good to bad to worse around here as well as anyone else."

Shampoo pouted. "What that mean?"

"Means exactly what I said." Akane stuffed the last of her okonomiyaki into her mouth with that.

"At least we won't be the ones pullin' the carpet from under each other, right?" Ukyo asked as Shampoo gave Akane a mild glare.

"There's that," Akane finally replied, "But that doesn't mean people won't be lining up down the street to pull it from under us anyway."

Shampoo nodded assent. "Yeah, stupid Mousse probably on way back."

Ukyo sighed. "Ranma's going to have some kind of plan to try to 'win' this battle we've started."

"And I've got to deal with Daddy, my sisters, Happosai, and Kuno leading the charge of every boy at my school wanting to date me."

The silence that followed was broken by Ukyo's optimism. "But hey, we're all friends here now, right? So we'll be there for each other, a unified front!"

Shampoo smiled. "Sounds good."

Akane let out a small sigh, and smiled. "That's right, we should be able to handle this if we work together as friends."

Finishing her okonomiyaki, Shampoo wiped her face with a napkin and got up. "Well, Shampoo tired and work in morning. We go home?"

"Yeah." Akane got up, and as she tossed out their paper plates, Ukyo came over and gave her a hug. "Ah?"

"Thanks, sugar," Ukyo whispered. "This really was a good idea, we're all going to come out of this better for it."

Akane returned the hug, and nodded slowly. "I know, I know."

Pulling away, Akane gave Ukyo a bright smile and left with Shampoo after a final wave goodbye.

* * *

"It's finally time for bed," Akane said to herself as she finished changing into her pajamas, thoroughly exhausted from everything. "I'll probably miss school tomorrow because I'm going to sleep for the next 3 days."

Akane stretched, arching her back as she turned away from Shampoo.

Shampoo simply slid out of her clothes, not even concerning herself with anything else but getting to sleep. "Shampoo still sore from today, but get to sleep in nice bed work to make up for it."

"Yeah I…" Akane stopped with one knee on her mattress as she caught Shampoo's completely nude form in one of her eyes. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Getting ready for sleep."

"N-naked?!"

"Shampoo turn to cat too too many times before, get stuck in bed clothes. Not very fun," Shampoo explained, taking a casual stance that did nothing to hide her nudity.

That made sense, but it didn't stop Akane from flushing just a tad. Not even Ranma, in his full cluelessness of womanly things, was this brazen about being naked. "I can understand that, but…"

"But…?"

There were too many things to explain and not even time to do so before she'd just fall over asleep. Akane decided that since she was tired, she was reacting way too much for something so innocuous. "Fine, let's just go to bed." Akane finished climbing into bed, but was denied sleep by Shampoo poking her in the side. "What?"

"We share bed yes? Shampoo not sleep on floor like dog." The bed was small, but Shampoo had slept on a pile of straw before, so she wasn't going to complain.

"But you're naked!"

"Shampoo already explain reason for that. Make room for Shampoo, or give up bed entirely." The Former Amazon was trying to be nice, but things wouldn't be happening if she hadn't been convinced to give up on Ranma and be exiled.

Akane bit her lip, realizing that she was being unreasonable. They had forgotten to grab a futon for her to sleep on, so now here they were.

"Shampoo no understand you, Shampoo grow up sleeping with Amazon sisters. First thing she has to learn is sleep alone, very cold and lonely." It wasn't exactly an appeal to emotion, but Shampoo felt it would be easier to ply her this way instead of starting another fight.

"Okay, just for tonight. We'll get you a futon as soon as we can, alright?" Akane scooted over, holding the blanket up for Shampoo.

"Thank you." Shampoo said it simply, but with a cute little smile on her face. As the exiled Amazon slid into bed with Akane, the youngest Tendo tried to get her embarrassment under control. "Why is you so hung up on Shampoo being naked?"

"I'm not used to people just spontaneously being naked." Akane didn't turn around, nor did she react to Shampoo coming into contact with her as the purple haired girl settled in.

"Shampoo not pervert."

"I know, it's a culture thing."

"Not worry about it, Shampoo keep hands to self as long as you hands behave themselves." Shampoo grinned, even though Akane couldn't see it. "Then we find out which of us may be pervert in disguise."

Akane elected to say nothing and just settle into bed, trying to go to sleep.

"Goodnight."

"Yeah, goodnight."

* * *

The next morning proved to be very different indeed, as the lack of combat noises at the first hint of dawn signaled that Ranma had not returned after last night. It was certainly idyllic and lacking in the usual hustle and/or bustle that usually went down at this time. This meant that Akane's long forgotten, but still faithfully set, alarm clock actually got to sound off with her still asleep in bed instead of being shut off by Kasumi later.

However, this proved to be a bad thing for the time telling device as it was silenced by a rather violent swing of Shampoo's fist. The resultant crash did wake Akane up, who slithered out from bed like her bones had turned to konnyaku jelly. Without a thought to Shampoo, who proceeded to hog the bed, Akane gathered her bathing supplies and went to do her usual morning routine.

It was around the time she was in mid-scrubbing that her brain came online and started blaring alarms as she had not registered getting out of bed.

"Why can't we just get rid of school entirely?" Akane complained, dousing herself with cold water to rinse off and fully shocking herself to full alertness. "I at least have a little to time soak and eat." Despite it being later than when she used to get up, she had the bathroom free and clear, with nothing else to really distract her. Things were starting to make sense again, even as she ignored who she had slept in the same bed as last night.

Time passed and Akane was making her usual spirited dash to school. Even though she couldn't shake the weird feeling about how foreign it was not to have a certain pigtail bearing jerk annoying her, she could still enjoy the peace. That enjoyment was fleeting as she saw a familiar sight ahead of her, and she jogged to a halt before the large crowd of boys waiting just inside the gates of the school.

"What are you all doing here?" She really didn't need to ask, but she had to confirm her fears.

"Akane," one of the boys spoke with hope in his voice, "Is it true that you dumped Ranma for good? He's not your fiancé anymore?"

Well there it was. "Yes, I dumped that jerk for good. But I'm not looking for a boyfriend."

Like that stopped them before, she inwardly reminded herself as the boys began cheering. Some even began crying profusely, tears of joy.

"Akane, now that you are single, we will take up arms for the right to date you once again!" the same boy in the crowd loudly declared.

Bristling, Akane clenched her book bag in her fingers. "This is my only warning! I don't want to date any of you stupid boys!"

"That's for our fists to decide!" many of the boys declared together as they charged.

"I won't lose this time!" a few shouted.

"I'll make you go out with me!" one voice stood out.

"I want to see your panties!" That one made Akane see red.

"Well, if you are tired of living, who am I to not grant your wish for oblivion and total absolution!" Akane fired up, loosening her arms and legs as she prepared to dive into the sea of boys coming towards her.

"Akane!" This voice came from her side and was most definitely not male. In fact, she immediately recognized the voice as Ukyo's.

"I didn't think you were coming in with your preparations for changing up your restaurant!" Akane turned to the okonomiyaki chef, who smiled at her.

"I wasn't, but what you said last night got to me." Ukyo turned and threw several mini-spatulas, which halted the horde for the moment. "But we're friends, right? And what kind of friend leaves their friends to fight alone against a mob?"

Akane smiled, feeling a slight bit of relief. Instead of it being Ranma patronizing her and making her feel pathetic, here was someone who wanted to help her out and didn't mind saying so. "Thanks! Let's kick their asses so you can go back to work!"

"Yeah!" Ukyo charged forward and swung her battle spatula, the oversized cooking implement breaking about the gathered boys like an oar scattering the sea.

Akane's fist found its home in the face of the nearest boy to her, sending him toppling end over end. Several of the boys, the weakest and most pragmatic of the group, realized that they were about to take on both Ukyo and Akane together and quietly noped the fuck out and ran while the running was good. Which turned out to be good as Akane backhanded another boy, sending him flying into the wall.

"Today's special is pain!" Ukyo roared, laughing as another wide swing caught one of the horde and sent him tumbling away. "Don't worry about payment boys, it's on the house!" Ukyo jammed the spatula into the ground and threw herself into a flying kick that would make Liu Kang green with envy.

"Come on!" Akane yelled, smashing a football player down with her school satchel. "Numbers didn't work before, the least you could have done is gotten stronger!" Pivoting off her left foot, Akane surged forward like an imperious wave, her punch sending the new captain of the Sumo club flying like he was a leaf on the wind.

"One beat down pervert, order up!" Ukyo swept up the vice captain of the Tennis club, flipping him up into the air like a human okonomiyaki, only to be intercepted by the sumo club captain turned surface-to-air missile.

The effectiveness of the duo had already caused the horde to begin breaking down, as any of the ones who were by Ukyo turned and fled back to the safety of the school.

The same, however, could not be said for Akane's half. This, however, was not out of some misplaced bravery, but rather they just couldn't get away from the buzzsaw Akane had turned into. Bodies flew into the air as the cyclonic Tendo smashed through them without remorse. The last boy, who was a newbie to the karate club, stood pat in defiance.

"Huh, one of them didn't run away," Ukyo observed, as Akane squared off with the kid.

"I am no coward!" the boy yelled without fear. "Others may think you unbeatable, but that is because they are weak! I am strong! Stronger than all!"

"Oh brother," Akane said, brushing some hair away from her face. "Look kid, there's a time to walk away from any fight and this is it."

"That talk is the talk of the weak!" The boy assumed a fighting pose. "Ossu! My name is-" He was cut off as Akane suddenly appeared in front of him and kicked him over the school.

"I really don't care," Akane said, though feeling sorry for picking on what's his name. Whatever it was, and however badass it was supposed to be, he'd have to settle for intimidating the roof of the school with it.

"That's cold… is what I'd say if he wasn't assaulting you," Ukyo said, shaking her head as Akane dusted her hands. "I didn't know it was like_ this."_

"They stopped a long time before you arrived," Akane replied with an annoyed tone, before stretching a little. "They're even weaker than before, which is sad."

"They stopped because of Ranma huh?" Ukyo guessed at Akane's frustration.

"Yeah, it was something I was slightly grateful to him for… but we know how gratitude and Ranma mix." Akane rolled her eyes.

"Like oil and water eh?" Ukyo replied, before checking her watch. "Welp, I got to go, need to finish setting up for things with Shampoo."

"Thanks for the help." Akane extended a hand.

"Glad to help." Ukyo shook the proffered hand, before turning and sprinting away.

One of the girls, who had watched the battle unfolded, summed it up for the school at large:

"What the hell did we just see?"

* * *

Not one day. Not even twelve hours had gone by and Akane had to crush another horde of boys looking to fill the void Ranma left. Kuno hadn't even gotten back from wherever she had punted him off to, but she knew very well how he was going to react. She was sure the buffoon already knew that she and Ranma were done, and was preparing for some big, dramatic spectacle.

She was also certain that he could offer her all the tea in China and freedom for Tibet and she was still going to beat him over the head with whatever white horse he rides in on!

"Akane, is everything okay?" Yuka, one of Akane's closer classmates, rested her hands on her desk to her right. To her left was Sayuri, her arms akimbo as she regarded Akane with worry

"The boys were practically rioting before you got here. They were saying that you and Ranma broke up," Sayuri said quietly.

Akane nodded. "That's absolutely right. I don't want anything to do with him anymore."

Both girls stared at Akane, less worried and more incredulous. To say she found this disconcerting was a bit of an understatement. "What?"

"You're not serious, are you?" Yuka asked.

Akane recoiled. "Why would I not be?!"

"Because he's your fiancé, isn't he?" Yuka asked.

"Yeah, he may be a jerk sometimes, but he means well, doesn't he?" Sayuri asked.

"Yeah, meaning well only goes so far! There's a point where you have to give up on a bad relationship and I was an idiot for not doing this sooner."

Sayuri cringed. "The date at the festival went that bad?"

"Dancing Ultranationalists and vegan zombie tourists, Sayuri! And all of it was his fault."

"Still…" Yuka began, and paused briefly when Akane turned her attention to her. "… Can you get back together with him?"

Akane reacted to the question, of course, with stunned disbelief. "What."

"Well you looked so cute together…" Yuka's weak excuse trailed off when Akane's disbelief melted into anger.

"If you think he and I fighting every day was _cute_, then by all means, date that jerk yourself to get the full experience!"

Sayuri reacted to the prospect of dating Ranma with horror. "What? No, I don't have that kind of patience!"

"And I ran out, so sorry but no. I'm not going back to him to be your daily sideshow!"

"Well can you get back with Ranma so the boys will stop going after you?" Yuka pleaded.

"I'm sorry, _what?"_

"If you're really single again then every boy is going to be after you! Including the really hot boys, like Daimon-kun and Ishida-sempai!" Yuka explained.

Akane remembered those two, Ukyo had destroyed them both in the brawl, but that was moot. "I'm definitelty not getting back together with Ranma because you two want to date some stupid, worthless boys!"

"It's not just us, though," Sayuri pleaded, "Some have dumped their girlfriends because you're available!"

"No I'm not-!" Akane then stopped. "Wait, _seriously?"_

Both girls nodded. "Five minutes ago, Masaki-san dumped Yayoi in the hall because he 'had a second chance with Akane-chan'. She ran crying into the bathroom!" Sayuri said.

Yuka nodded. "Boys get so dumb when you're involved. If you get back with Ranma this will stop, but really any boy will do!"

Akane was at a loss of words. Were they really this stupid? Were all boys just this absolutely stupid when it came to her?

"I… I can't…" Akane slowly shook her head, her hands began to shake.

"Please, Akane?" Sayuri begged.

"Please, at the very least so we can at least not have to deal with the morning ritual again, okay? We'll even help you find a boy who isn't completely awful."

There was a loud crack that turned every head in the classroom to Akane. She had broken her desk slamming her fists onto it. Panting, her entire body shaking in barely suppressed rage, Akane slowly stood up from her chair as her two friends backed from her in fright.

"A boy that isn't completely awful…?" Akane's voice was deathly calm, but the tension in it was unmistakable. And then, the tension broke.

"ALL BOYS ARE COMPLETELY AWFUL! I HATE THEM ALL AND I WILL NEVER DATE ANOTHER BOY AS LONG AS I LIVE!"

Her outburst was met with dead calm once again, as she stood there panting. Looking around at her fellow classmates, some of them the boys she'd trashed not too long before, she turned away and walked out of her classroom, badly repressing a sad sniffle.

* * *

Outside, there were still many boys picking themselves up after the vicious and one-sided battle. None of them expected to succeed, except maybe the kid Akane punted onto the roof, but the message had been sent. If Akane was going to be single, then they were going to honor Kuno's challenge to prove their worthiness to be her boyfriend by defeating her in savage combat.

While optimistic about future battles, there was an unspoken agreement that they needed a new strategy… and to convince Kuonji to not get involved again.

"How can spatulas hurt so much?" One boy sitting among the unconscious bodies and walking wounded was complaining of Ukyo's vicious prowess as a shadow fell over him.

"What happened here?" Ryoga Hibiki was dumbstruck at the scale of destruction here. "D-did Ranma do this?"

The boy looked up at Ryoga. "Hey, Hibiki when did you get here?"

Ryoga was purely horrified. "Why? Who would do something like this?!"

The boy blinked slowly. "Oh, Akane did this… though Kuonji helped…"

_Ukyo and Akane _did this? Well, it certainly explained the thoroughness of the attack. "But why?"

"We uh… we challenged Akane to a duel, because if we beat her, we would be worthy enough to date her. We uh… all lost."

"Did you say if you can beat her you can date her?!" Ryoga's brief excitement was doused by what constituted as a conscience reminding him that even _thinking_ about hurting Akane was horrible and punishable by honorable suicide. A much more important detail distracted him from self-murder.

"Wait, Akane is already dating Ranma!" Much as he hated it, it was a fact.

"Not anymore, she dumped him yesterday and even ended the engagement…"

Or not. "W-what? She dumped him?"

"Yeah, that creepy voodoo kid came running to school earlier shouting it from the top of his lungs until he passed out, and then Akane confirmed it."

Ryoga was ready to shout from the top of his lungs until he passed out. Akane had done it, she finally saw how terrible Ranma was and broke up with him!

"This… THIS IS GREAT!" Ryoga could not be happier. Now nothing could stop him, he could tell Akane exactly how he felt without being rejected because she loved Ranma!

_Oh Akane, I never gave up hope for this day! You and Ranma are through, now I can tell you everything I wanted to tell you, I'm so happy!_ And he got happier, when he saw Akane march out the front doors of the school, her head bowed and her shoulders hitched up. Wait, she looked upset. "Akane?"

Upon hearing his voice Akane looked up and stared at Ryoga, before tears began to blur her vision. Finally, a boy she didn't totally hate. Before he could say anything else, she flung herself to him and hugged him tightly as she began to cry.

"R-Ryoga…!" She sniffled pathetically in a mix of relief and despair.

* * *

"Shampoo hear rumors about morning thing, thought people exaggerate," Shampoo admitted as she reviewed the restaurant open checklist. Aside from some difficulty finding some things, opening Ucchan's was no different from opening the Cat Cafe.

Ukyo shook her head. "I always thought Akane-chan was exaggerating too, cuz you know with how Ranma and Kuno are. But man… there were easily a hundred boys out there and they all wanted to beat her up. I mean, sure they were easy as pie to beat but she had to deal with that every day for weeks before."

Shampoo let out an amused snort. "Shampoo would hate boys too if had to endure that."

Ukyo sat down on a stool behind her griddle and sighed. "Being engaged to Ranma didn't help that at all. I'm honestly surprised she's not a stone-cold misandrist for what she's had to deal with. Though it does explain some other things…"

Another amused sound left Shampoo's lips. "Like how Ranma not make Tomboy's panties wet like he do ours?"

A blush bloomed across Ukyo's face. "Ah, crude!"

"Say boy-talkin' crossdresser."

Ukyo coughed to clear her throat and tried to banish her blush. "I wouldn't say it in as many colorful words, but yeah… the only time Akane would really show any attraction to him is when she was under the influence of something, like the Reversal Jewel. Any other time you had to twist her arm to get her to admit she had any positive feelings towards him!"

Shampoo nodded assent at that. "She really no better than him for that, but he demon loving only himself. Tomboy, she just not attracted."

Ukyo let out a thoughtful hum. "Do you think she even realizes it?"

"No, but it there. Shampoo see Tomboy sleep before, she get super violent when anyone near her."

"Like the Spring Sleep Incense." Ukyo recalled that fiasco with a grimace. "What's the point?"

"Yeah, but Shampoo sleep with Akane last night. She no get violent, she get cuddly."

One of Ukyo's eyebrows arched. "Cuddly?"

"In sleep, whole night. She hug Shampoo and be really peaceful." Shampoo smiled. "When go to bathroom, she ask for not to go in sleep, and when came back, she cuddle again and be happy."

Ukyo shook her head. "Wow, so it's really written on the wall. Should we… confront her about it?"

Shampoo shook her head. "She figure it out sooner or later, but something for her to figure out. We supportive, though."

"I never would've figured someone from a boondock village in China would be so progressive," Ukyo murmured.

Shampoo snorted haughtily. "Joketsuzoku ahead of world."

Ukyo openly rolled her eyes at that. "Oh, I'm sure."

* * *

Wiping her tears with one of his bandannas, Akane sat next to Ryoga by the unoccupied baseball diamond of Furinkan High School, trying to recover her composure after crying her frustration into his shirt for the last five minutes. "I'm so sorry, Ryoga… I'm just s-so… frustrated, angry! God, I hate them, I hate all of them!"

For all of his devotion, Ryoga was… uncomfortable. He had seen her angry before, but those had been good times, when she was mad at Ranma and everything was good in the world. But he, who lived in an indifferent ocean of ignorance, had really no idea what was going on. Not in how she felt about anything or anyone else.

And that was the rub of it all; no one else really did. Akane shouldn't have been surprised by the reaction of her friends, they had always been self-centered like that. It was just after so long in Ranma's presence that she had grew deaf and dumb to their indifference.

The most popular girl in school and not a single one really cared about how she felt.

Akane let loose a bitter laugh, rocking Ryoga back on his heels. "I get it now, I get it! I've always been the one who had to bear the brunt of their selfishness. How I was never even a person to any of them, and how all I was good for was what they got from me. Or by being close to me, all of these so called friends and people that want to date me and not a one cares about how I feel."

Ryoga hesitated, before he went with what usually worked: buttering her up with unconditional praise. "It's not their fault they're such jerks that they can't understand how you feel about things. If they could understand that…" He trailed off, not wanting to face the reality of that sentence.

"Hah, maybe you're right." Akane laughed again, or maybe it was a sob. "But it's back to blame Akane for everything again. 'Yayoi dated an asshole, but it's your fault she got dumped by him'. 'Don't you feel bad for us Akane, we can't get laid because we're such sexless bitches if you're around!' Feh, what a load of garbage, every last one of them are the same." She wasn't being fair at all, but she was venting. Fairness was the last thing on her mind.

"Well, at least Ranma is out of the way." Ryoga couldn't find a way to pin this on Ranma, so he decided to spin it around and bring up how he was gone.

"He was just a stopper, that's what I realize now. I would've had to deal with them eventually, seeing as how Ranma would have been gone some day." Akane looked down at the dirt and felt so small, she wondered if she could have burrowed her way to a place where people weren't such inescapable dicks.

"Ranma would what?" Now that didn't sound like Ranma to Ryoga. Once he had something, he wasn't going to let it go if he could help it.

"It's how it was going to happen, that's what I realize now. I'd either get sick of him like I did, or he would have chosen someone else because that's how it was going to go." Her eyes watered and she choked back a sob. "After all, there's nothing special about me, nothing that he would seriously choose me over the two of them. Or even Kodachi! I can't cook, sew, clean or do anything right! I'm just a screwed up girl who should have been born a guy! At least I wouldn't have gone through all of this then!"

Ryoga awkwardly put an arm around her and tried his best to be smooth. "Now you know that's not true. If there was nothing special about you, why did you even get a chance to dump him?"

Okay, so maybe he wasn't exactly the world's biggest dumbass. But still… there was a lot of emotions placed in there that took Akane off guard. "Come on, don't give me that."

"It's true! If they could be so entranced by someone so mundane, why do they line up for you?" Ryoga pointed back at the school. "Those jerks, as huge as they are, understand that there's something special about you Akane-san! Something worth knowing!"

"You're just saying that." Akane looked at the arm around her and felt slightly uncomfortable. There was no way… "Ryoga, when I heard that Yayoi got dumped, I felt horrified."

"And that's because you're amazing like that!" He was going to do it, just a little more and he'd sweep her around to face her. Stare her in the eyes and tell her how he felt about her. He'd watch the joy that would bring, and erase those tears. "You care about people, even people who don't deserve it! You cared about Ranma, even when he could barely care about you."

That really started to make Akane uncomfortable with the reality Ryoga was trying to show her. "A lot of people care about other people, that's hardly unique to me."

"B-but!" He lost his train of thought as she derailed his logic. "Akane-san, you have to understand the power you have over people, the way you make them feel."

Akane's eyes grew large, as realization began to dawn upon her. "Ry-"

She was cut off when Ryoga spun her around to face him fully, his expression burning with intensity.

"Akane-san… don't you know how I feel? How much I've wante-" He got no further in his declaration as Akane's knee smashed into his stomach. Not expecting it, totally off guard and having taken time away from getting smashed through every hard surface had dulled the durability built up by the breaking point training.

The lost boy lost his grip and stumbled back, but he just managed to barely remain on his feet. "Ak-"

She cut him off with a haymaker that dropped him to his back.

"DON'T YOU DARE PUT THIS ON ME YOU BASTARD! DON'T YOU DARE MAKE IT OUT LIKE THIS IS ALL MY FAULT!" Akane shrieked, as she reared up and stomped on his face. "NOT NOW! NOT AFTER THIS MORNING!"

She panted and started to come down. Gaining control of herself, she leaned her head back and looked at the sky, shambling away from Ryoga, not even looking at him anymore.

"Of all the nerve. To try to pull this on me when I just got done with him. This was all one big game of fight over the girl between the two of you." It made sick sense, Ryoga hated Ranma enough he'd try and steal his fiancée. What a creep.

"No, you're wrong." It was weak, but she could hear him just enough.

"Don't you dare tell me that it's different because you have 'feelings' for me." Akane spat, and surveyed the empty diamond. "Would you have noticed me if Ranma wasn't engaged to me?"

Ryoga couldn't find an answer to that fast enough. Bad enough he blew it, but he couldn't even come back with something.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Akane said, sniffling a little as it all fell into a nasty place again. "That's all I've been to people, a prize to fight over and win. How I felt didn't matter because you don't care about the trophy except that it's something to win."

Ryoga remained silent, as Akane started to sob again. His irrational side blamed Ranma somehow, but the rest of him was ready to tell it to fuck off.

"It's funny." Akane didn't laugh, as she got her crying under control. "Everyone's always told me how I felt about things. How I should do this or someone will hate me. Or how since I did this it means I feel like that. It's such bullshit, story of my life."

She turned and looked back at him, trying to make sense of the jumble of her feelings. She could tell, even flat on his back that he was in shape. If he went to school at Furinkan, he'd have a harem of willing girls… and she felt nothing. Here she was, a teenage girl with all the boys coming to her yard and she didn't really feel anything. Except contempt, loathing, a sincere feeling of dislike.

A noise to the side drew her attention, revealing Yuka had been selected to venture forth and try and get Akane to listen to reason. Akane looked at Yuka and could feel her eyes on her, boring into her as the other girl took in the scene.

"Geeze Akane, if you had another boyfriend, you should have just said so." Yuka said, laughing a little to try and lighten the air. "No need to be modest, he could easily beat Kuno and get the guys to back off again no problem." Yuka came over to stand by Akane, only to see her nominal friend glowering at her.

Akane didn't care for Yuka's insinuations, but there was something important that was triggered by her 'friend's' sudden appearance. Akane could see it in her eyes, she doubted Yuka was aware of it, but she could see the jealousy in the other girl's eye.

Like a light going on, it all clicked into place.

Akane didn't like boys, at all. Not like like them, as in want to date or marry them. All of them were just not appealing to her, but she could have dealt with it because that was how guys behaved. But what drew her intense ire and hate for them was how the other girls reacted to her.

They treated her nicely, kept their words sweet with platitudes of friendship, but they couldn't hide their eyes. All of them looked at her with such cold eyes, such judgmental stares that the youngest Tendo didn't understand it at all. But now it finally made sense to her, because it put the last piece of an unknown puzzle into place.

She hated the boys, because they made the girls hate her.

It was juvenile in a way, but there was no other way about it. The girls didn't really like talking to her unless there was something to be gained from it, some social ladder to be helped up by her. The girls who Akane really wanted to be friends with, and maybe even something deeper than that.

"Akane…" Yuka said, waving a hand in front of her face.

"It finally makes sense." Akane couldn't see Yuka anymore, but Ranma's girl form. How meek and sad she had looked, and how it felt like Akane finally had a kindred spirit, someone to confide in and let loose all the pain. And then she turned out to really be a he…

"What makes sense?" Yuka was freaking out now, as Akane hadn't stopped staring at her.

"I don't like boys."

"Everyone knows, but that's the great thing about boys: they grow into men."

"It's not that. I hate boys." Akane pointed back at Ryoga. "I don't even want to date him, hell, I never even really thought of him as anything but a slight friend."

The sound of Ryoga's heart breaking was audible from a kilometer away.

Slowly, Akane reached up and ran her fingers through her short hair to rest her hand against the back of her neck. It was all there, the uncomfortable truth.

"It doesn't matter what they grow up into, I'll never like them," she quietly said as her gaze finally left Yuka and trailed down to her feet, to look at herself as though her body was suddenly foreign to her. She tensed, her hand gripping the back of her neck as the other clenched into a fist, and relaxed.

"I'm gay."

Yuka's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, as her jaw cratered and snot began to fall from her nostrils in long ribbons. Ryoga, meanwhile, slowly lost all color or focus, his face becoming so serene it was like he was going to fade from existence. The wind swirled around them, mixing in with the choking noises from Yuka's throat.

"I-I-if this is a j-joke you're not funny Akane!" Yuka finally managed to get out, having been shocked from her stupor by a stray leaf blowing into her opened mouth.

"I'm not joking," Akane said firmly, closing her eyes.

"That's not r-right though. What about all of the guys that were after you? And the guys you liked, like Ranma and this guy…?" Yuka trailed off as she saw Ryoga's fading body. "Well, Ranma I guess."

"I never liked any of them, not one." Akane nodded slowly. "I liked Ranma for all of ten minutes when I first met him, and that was because he was…"

"A girl." Yuka's face again contorted into shock as if Akane had just destroyed the very foundation of her world. "But d-does that mean…"

When Yuka took a hesitant step from her, Akane smiled serenely. "I'm not going to throw myself at the first available girl I see. Besides, I don't think I really like you much anymore, or any of you girls."

"B-but…!" Yuka felt her heart seize up at the coldness behind that flowery phrasing.

"'Oh gee Akane, why couldn't you stay engaged to a guy you don't even like so me and Sayuri could keep getting laid.' Yeah, I can't see how anyone might find themselves re-evaluating their friendships with people who say crap like that." Akane's sarcasm bit at Yuka's conscience.

"We didn't mean it like that, it's just-"

"You never considered how I felt, I know."

"It's not like that!"

"It's exactly like that."

"Damn it Akane, I'm trying to apologize here!"

"Are you? Because you usually start with 'I'm sorry' and work from there."

"So that's it? We're not friends anymore because-"

"Were we ever friends? Or did you all just hang onto me because you all needed me for things?"

Yuka didn't have a reply to that.

"Yeah, it's probably for the best you shut up now." Akane breathed out and turned around and started walking away.

"Akane, school is still going on!"

"Yeah, and I don't care."

"You can't just go swanning off like this!"

"Can't I? This is me, swanning off, goodbye!" Akane punctuated her statement by waving an obscene gesture at her former friend.

"Akane-san…" The specter that called itself Ryoga Hibiki moaned as she left his sight. When did everything get so dark and cold?

* * *

"Okay," Ukyo said, after they had finished getting everything ready for their practice session. "I like to speed serve if there are customers, so use less of the batter and it'll finish quick. It's a bit thinner but people sitting here will want it done quicker."

"Shampoo understand." The former Amazon give a quick nod. "Preparing if you is busy elsewhere."

"Well, yeah. Plus, you can cook too so teaching you the basics of okonomiyaki means you can experiment with it better." Ukyo explained, having not considered the reasoning behind her explanation beforehand. "We'll probably be busy as all hell, each of us cooking most of the time."

"Shampoo just teasing," Shampoo replied with a giggle. "Shampoo too, too happy to learn how to cook from friend. It important show of trust."

"That's right, your village was mostly women right?" Ukyo was beginning to understand what made up the ball of contradictions before her.

"Is so. Good mans hard to come by, often considered too precious to waste in battle. Teach excess womens art of war to survive." Shampoo replied easily, as she mixed the okonomiyaki batter off hand. "Shampoo oldest of father's daughter, was expected to do great things. Become councilwoman, lead tribe in my old age, be much like Granny."

"Yikes, seems like your life was pretty much set from birth." Ukyo absent-mindedly demonstrated the pour for the fast cooking okonomiyaki.

"Too, too true. Father is good man, apologize for harshness for Great Grandmama who train Shampoo to both cook and kill. Was supposed to be much older before defeat at hands of male." Shampoo laughed as she copied the pour perfectly. "Expectation was also man that could beat Shampoo would be unable to defeat his desire to bed Shampoo too."

Ukyo laughed, a short one to show she wasn't mocking her new found friend. "Oh man, Ranma defied all expectations didn't he?"

"Shampoo say it too, too bad. For warrior mans, we train him unconditionally in whatever art we have." Shampoo checked to make sure her okonomiyaki weren't burning before continuing. "Is precious commodity, no matter fighter or not. Mans is to be protected at all cost, woman who abuse husband is put to death."

"R-really?"

"Is so, Shampoo no lie to Spatula Girl. Once found Aunt drowned in stream, she executed for abusing husband." Shampoo said matter of factly as she flipped the okonomiyaki. "Is grim but protect us for 3000 years."

"And here I thought you hated males."

"Because Mousse yes?" Shampoo asked, continuing at Ukyo's nod. "Born Amazon Man is supposed to marry outsider woman, rare for man to be expected to give men Kiss of Death unless he obstacle to bride."

"So he got beat up because he obsessed over you?" Ukyo laughed harder at this, keeping tabs on her own okonomiyaki.

"Yes, is not shocking. Amazons of Joketsuzoku exist for 3000 years, the first of our tribe was writing our laws out maybe before you ancestors were even on this island. We understand need for diversity, is why laws. Just because we no build big buildings out of concrete metal and glass no mean we is ignorant of how world is," Shampoo said, an equal measure of pride and slight regret. "But Shampoo reject that history and carve path for self."

Then it began to change. "So what Shampoo born first, is having four sisters to take place!" The tremble in her voice grew. "Shampoo happy now, no Mousse, no obligations on who marry!" Her voice caught briefly. "C-can marry for love if want!"

Ukyo bit her lip as she watched the confident girl finally melt into a puddle of sobs.

"Why Great Grandmama no want Shampoo?" She looked up at Ukyo, tears in her eyes. "Plenty of Shampoo family leave village. Grandma do, even telling off Great Grandmama in middle of village. So what if Shampoo acknowledge there more than village? So what if Shampoo want decide how live? Why Shampoo exiled?"

Without thinking, Ukyo dished up all of the finished okonomiyaki before setting them aside and gathering the former Amazon into her arms and tried to soothe. "Oh sugar, there is nothing wrong with you choosing for yourself how you live your life! And anyone who would try and hold you back for wanting to be decide for yourself is a turd and they don't deserve a single bit of consideration from you!"

Shampoo turned into the hug and began crying in earnest, seeking comfort in her friend's arms.

Ukyo looked up at the sound of the door opening, cursing herself for forgetting to lock it. She relaxed, however, when she saw it was Akane. "Oh, hey Akane-chan. Guess things went a bit rough after I left?"

"Like you wouldn't believe."

"Come over here sugar and let it out." Ukyo shuffled Shampoo around to make room for Akane too.

Akane silently made her way over to the duo and turned things into a group hug session.

Silence reigned as a few minutes passed, before the trio separated and took stock of themselves.

"I hope that makes you feel better, at least," Ukyo said, good naturedly.

"I don't feel like murdering everyone at school anymore." Akane said, half jokingly.

"Shampoo glad to let it out," Shampoo added quietly.

"Well that's good!" Ukyo turned and looked at the cooled okonomiyaki and got an idea. "Why don't you stay and test a few things out for us Akane-chan? I'm sure we can use the opinion of someone who isn't completely biased."

"Shampoo think is too, too good idea." Shampoo added, smiling a little as she wiped her eyes. "We is both having high opinions of self."

"Thanks…" Akane said, smiling faintly. "I don't really want to go home right now."

"It's okay, I understand." Ukyo smiled. "And when I open for business, you can go up to my place and lay down. No need for you to be harassed by the perverts that come in."

Akane just nodded, smiling just a bit more.

"Well!" Ukyo clapped her hands and turned back to the okonomiyaki. "Since these are all cooked, let's start with these." The mood was dour enough to cover how fast she had turned away. There was the thing that Ranma always said that stuck in Ukyo's head. That the reason he stuck by Akane so much was…

_She really does have a cute smile…_ There was that tiny fluttering in her stomach, the same that Ranma always said he got when Akane really smiled.

* * *

"Everything was packed today," Akane said, having overheard the raucous bash that had broken out in wake of the merger of the Cat Cafe and Ucchan's.

"Too, too good food bring lots of hungry people." Shampoo was swelling with pride. It was exhausting, but rewarding. She hadn't gotten to cook often at the Cat Cafe, but she knew most of Cologne's recipes by heart. "Things turn out okay, despite day's attempt to ruin them."

"Yeah, I hear that," Akane said, slightly solemn as she thought back over the day of revelations. Before she continued, she overheard something she didn't really want to hear just yet. "Well, why not deal with my Sisters today too."

"Shampoo here," Shampoo stated without hesitation. She placed a comforting hand on Akane's shoulder.

"Thanks." The duo made their way to the living room, where they could start making out what Nabiki was saying clearly.

"…It was chaos like you wouldn't believe!" Nabiki said, waving her hands in exaggeration. "Half the school was rioting, and the other half were practically walking dead, just gazing off into oblivion."

"Oh my." Kasumi didn't have much to say, as she was absorbing the tale her middle sister had just told her.

"Oh, you missed the best parts believe me," Akane said as she and Shampoo entered the living room.

Nabiki frowned, first at Akane's claim, and then deepened it when she saw Shampoo. "What's she doing here?"

"She lives here, since Kasumi forgot to tell you." Akane rolled her eyes. "And before you say anything, Shampoo already has a job so she'll be able to pay her way here."

"But what about-" Nabiki barely started before she was cut off by Shampoo.

"Shampoo give up Ranma, is exile now." Shampoo gave the middle Tendo a look as if daring her to complain. "Was you sister's idea, she responsible."

"So you two just gave up? Or was it because he chose Ukyo?" Nabiki was fishing for information but she had gotten her only free bite.

"1000 yen per answer. Cough up or stew in silence." Akane held a hand out, drawing a really dirty look.

"I'll ask Kasumi later." Nabiki turned away insulted at having her own game played against her.

"Kasumi will probably tell you what she thinks is going on," Akane retorted. "The last time you relied on Kasumi for your gossip bait, you almost were arrested for saying the mayor had sex with a transvestite in Shinjuku."

Nabiki's eyes narrowed and she glared at her older sister.

"You said to tell you what I knew," Kasumi said gently.

"I'll deal with you later," Nabiki promised, debating whether to pay or not. "So what made you guys drop him?"

Akane raised her hand and beckoned with her fingers.

Shampoo laughed as Nabiki turned as red as girl-Ranma's hair.

"Not so fun when you're on the receiving end." Akane shrugged her shoulders. "You could have just dropped by her place and seen for yourself."

"I did but the place was slammed out the freakin' door," Nabiki complained.

"Now since you're the smart one of our family," Akane made a sarcastic gesture with her hands. "What can you deduce from the fact that Ukyo was so incredibly busy that you couldn't get in?"

The color drained from Nabiki's face as she realized the implications put forth.

"Yeah, you sit there and think about it." Akane turned to Kasumi. "How about some tea for the two of us, eh?"

"Shampoo is too, too thirsty. Work all day like dog," Shampoo added, as the pair went and sat down at the table.

Nabiki Tendo was annoyed.

No, that wasn't right, Nabiki Tendo was downright fucking FURIOUS. All of the biggest, juiciest shit went down when she wasn't even in town to see it! To experience the schadenfreude of it all! And most importantly, profit like a madwoman off it all. All the bets, info, gossip whatever she could have made for this and she wasn't there!

A strangled cry escaped from her throat as she began to literally choke on her rage.

"Is she okay?" Kasumi asked with concern, finishing pouring tea for Shampoo and Akane.

"She'll be fine in a minute. She's just really mad at herself for not being here when it all went down." Akane assured her big sis before taking a sip of the tea.

About that. Kasumi appeared a bit strained at that. "Maybe if she was here, this wouldn't have happened."

Shampoo laughed, slapping her knee as Akane tried not to spit take right into Kasumi's face. "You didn't say Nice Girl funny!"

Kasumi fell back to the defensive. "I don't see how that's funny. Ranma-kun is gone, Daddy is so upset-"

Akane gave Kasumi a dire look. "It's hilarious that you don't care that I decided to do something for myself."

And like that she went onto the attack. "Because you are making a mistake. Akane, I know you are stubborn and things are frustrating, but I also know that you genuinely care for Ranma and doing what you did to him yesterday was too far."

Akane set down her tea to avoid breaking the cup in her hand. "If you're so sad for him, why don't you go be his fiancée?"

"Because he cares about you too."

"Oh, is that why he said at the top of his lungs that he didn't want to be stuck with me when Shampoo and Ukyo told him off, and Daddy told him to marry me while the playing field was clear? I'm sorry, 'just me' he said."

"You know he didn't mean that, he's-"

"Only worried about himself, just like you are, and she always is." Akane gestured to Nabiki. "The only reason I was even engaged to him is because neither of you wanted to be hitched up with that hot mess."

"That's…!" Kasumi's argument died in her throat as Akane being irrevocably right hit her like a punch to the stomach.

"Be that as it may, you still went with it," an increasingly affronted Nabiki pointed out.

"So what, I was thrown into the bed so I should sleep in it?"

"Don't get me started on how many times we've all caught you and Ranma being all lovey-dovey."

"Oh yeah, that terrible joke! Those hollow moments of faux-intimacy, ruined by _everyone in the house deciding to interrupt it and then getting on our cases for ruining it."_ Akane laughed. "You are a genius at that, Nabiki, you and Daddy. You should be proud you have that much in common."

Nabiki didn't know what to be angrier at, for being compared to her father, or for Akane thinking she suddenly was the shit in her presence. "Like you didn't feel anything."

"Oh I did, but Ranma never hesitated to make me feel like shit after. But that suits you, doesn't it? As long as you can have something at my expense you were golden. Isn't that why you sell pictures of me to those idiot boys at school?"

Nabiki grew wide-eyed as Kasumi's attention fell squarely on her. "What?" The oldest Tendo asked.

"Oh, you talk about pictures she take of you and girl type Ranma to sell," Shampoo said, looking back at Nabiki as well. "Shampoo see some of them once, think they rather poor. No sense of lighting or anything, not even catch Akane's good side."

"NABIKI!" Kasumi shouted, scandalized at it all.

Nabiki winced from Kasumi's yell, before she whirled upon Akane. "You're just throwing everyone under the bus today, aren't you?!"

"How long have you been doing this?!" Kasumi demanded.

Akane raised her voice, but did not shout. "Oh stop acting like you care!"

Kasumi turned back to her youngest sister, cheeks burning red. "I do care-"

"No you honestly don't. The less you care, the less you have to react one way or another. Just put on that vapid smile of yours and that always cheerful tune to your voice…" Akane mimicked Kasumi's voice, right down to the maternal warmth and calmness. "… Just like this, and you're suddenly removed from it all."

Kasumi stared back at Akane, and after a moment a pout spoiled her features as Akane nodded in confirmation. "It's easier that way isn't it? You overlook Nabiki being a sleazy, grifting shark-"

"Hey!"

"-And me being a violent maniac and you don't have to do much else than clean up the mess." Akane reached up and tossed her hair for pointed emphasis.

Kasumi's pout deepened into an expression of hurt.

"Oh come on, Who do you think you're fooling? You sit there and watch me, Shampoo and Ukyo or Ranma and Ryoga nearly murder each other and think we're best chums. Nabiki runs off doing who knows what and you don't care because you don't see her do it." Akane patted her hand on the table top. "And you know what? It makes me sick that even after that you can sit there and act like I'm the bad person here."

Shampoo took a deep breath.

"That's not fair, Akane-chan!" Kasumi sounded desperate, tears forming at the edge of her eyes.

"FAIR?!" Akane shot up from her position, slamming her hand on the table. Kasumi shrank back from her youngest sister's sudden outburst, and remained on her heels even as Akane's cool returned. Even Nabiki was afraid.

Shampoo frowned, but knew Akane had to get it out of her system. The anger had been like poison coursing through her veins and she was finally cleansing herself.

"The only time anything is fair is when it's perfectly fine to you. It was fair that I was being harassed because you could tell yourself that I was too strong to get hurt. It was fair that I was alone, even in my own house. It was so fair when you decided for that I should to marry Ranma when I wanted nothing to do with him." Akane's breathing had picked up as she glared at Kasumi pointedly.

Kasumi broke eye contact with Akane and looked at the floor, thoroughly ashamed of herself.

"And you…" Akane turned her attention on Nabiki, who let out a squeak of fear. "Look at you, little miss socialite who _no one even likes_! You're a poisonous sack of treacherous shit with no friends. No one would talk to you if it weren't for you being such an ugly gossip, and the only time you're actually surrounded by boys is when you're whoring me or Ranma out. My lord, what are you even going to do with yourself when I'm not around to make you relevant?"

Nabiki sputtered but couldn't find the words over her own fear.

She turned back to Kasumi. "So yeah, if you're so broken up about me and Ranma breaking up? There he is. The moment he walks through the door jump into his arms and take on all the stupid, annoying crap you watched him put me through with a smile on your face. I'm not your little love story to keep you entertained between cleaning house and pretending to be Mom. Not anymore."

Akane turned her gaze back to her immediate elder that became a piercing glare normally reserved for Ranma at the height of shenanigans. "I'm not your cash cow anymore, either. Try to make another yen off me, and I will beat your face in until the only way you'll be able to make any cash is doing stripteases for Happosai with a bag over your head."

Nabiki fell back a bit, shaken by the calm sincerity of her threat.

Picking up her cup of tea, Akane blew on it and drank it down. After setting down the cup, she got up. "Oh, and by the way, I'm gay, so I'm never getting back together with Ranma even if he had a chance."

With that she headed for the stairs and the only sound in the Tendo residence was her stomping up them and into her room before the door loudly slammed shut.

Shampoo looked over at Nabiki, who was pale and shaking, and then over to Kasumi, who had her hand over her mouth and an utterly horrified look on her face.

"Shampoo should go," she said before she got up and went to follow Akane.

* * *

When Shampoo went upstairs and to Akane's room, she found her lying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling with her hands folded on her stomach. She seemed perfectly serene, relaxed even. But at the same time, she seemed in pain.

"That intense," Shampoo said quietly.

"Yeah," Akane whispered back.

"You okay?"

Akane grimaced. "The tea was still too hot."

Shampoo blinked.

"I burned my mouth gulping it down and it hurts. A lot."

Shampoo's eyebrows rose, as the youngest Tendo sat up and smiled brightly to her newfound roommate. "Other than that, I feel great."

A smile of her own appeared on her lips, before Shampoo bounced over to Akane and sat next to her. "Shampoo like you, like Grandmama who tell off Great Grandmama before leaving village."

Akane was relieved. "Thanks. How did that turn out for her?"

"Great Grandmama angry about it for long time, but then got over it when Shampoo born." A small sigh escaped Shampoo at that, because it was a comforting thought.

It was comforting all the same for Akane, who heaved out a sigh. "Well, there's no way I can hide it now. I told one of my former friends, both my sisters, and you…"

"It not problem. Shampoo and Spatula Girl already figure it out."

Akane did a double take. "Wait, you did?"

Shampoo nodded. "So not surprised. Don't change thing."

"Even you sleeping naked in bed with me?" Akane asked.

"Nope."

"You're just a really kind person to people you like, huh?"

Shampoo nodded with an affirming hum. "Shouldn't be worried. Who could do something about it?"

Akane smiled. "I guess there's that."

Shampoo patted Akane on the shoulder, and then pulled her into a hug. "Shampoo and Spatula Girl be there too. No one mess with you no more, or they die."

Leaning back into Shampoo, Akane returned the hug and sighed happily. "Thank you, Shampoo. I could've never done this without either of you."

"Of course not." At Akane's look, Shampoo giggled and nuzzled her face. "But we no could do this without you, either. That what friends do, yes? Make each other stronger."

Akane nodded in agreement, and drew back just a bit to exchange broad smiles with Shampoo. Everything felt right, just then, for the first time in a long time.

And then Shampoo leaned forward and kissed Akane, and everything felt _perfect._

* * *

A/N: Delicious, delicious yuri.


	3. Dr Girlslove

Legal Disclaimer: YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY PUDDING IF YOU DON'T EAT YOUR MEAT!

**ESCAPE FROM RANMA SAOTOME!  
Presented by The Anonguy Workshop**

**[Step 3: Dr. Girlslove]**  
_Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the ladies_

Today was Ukyo's busiest and most profitable day since she opened up Ucchan's. All of her previous records were smashed, bashed, and trashed and as Ukyo stared at her bottom line she wanted to dance around her restaurant in her underwear the second she closed it up. An odd way to celebrate but it was her restaurant she can do what she wants.

"Damn it feels good to be an entrepreneur," she said as she looked at the print out of the day's numbers. "If this keeps up I'll be able to afford more than just Shampoo as an employee. Oh, maybe even a motorized cart and someone else to work from it!"

As much as she loved it, she still couldn't help the feeling that it was all a little too good to be real. Honestly, all she had to do was dump Ranma and suddenly the whole damn world was falling into her lap. There had to be a downside to it all, the proverbial other shoe that had not yet fallen.

"Ugh, today was terrible. Akane can go to hell."

Oh, could this be it? She stopped when she heard the low conversation going on at one of the tables. They were a few female Furinkan students, trying to quietly converse.

"Keep it down, Kuonji and her are friends, remember?"

"I don't care!" the first girl snapped back in heated anger. "Not only are all the guys obsessed with Akane again, she's still being a pig headed bitch about things."

Ukyo was tempted to break things up, but she wanted to find out what she had missed at school by focusing on changing her business up.

"You're going to get us kicked out and banned from here, Yayoi," the third in the group whispered, pinching the first girl on the side. "I know you're upset about Masaki, but ruin your own life without taking us with you."

"Shut up Shizuya!" Yayoi growled, ready to haul off and deck the girl. "I didn't even get beyond holding his hand before he threw me away for that bitch."

"Yayoi, calm down already," the second girl whispered, slapping the table. "Masaki would have been more receptive to you if you didn't seem like you wanted to eat him alive from dick on in."

"Kikuko…" Yayoi growled, before Shizuya pinched her cheek rather hard. "Ow!"

"Calm the fuck down," Shizuya snapped, letting go of her face. "Yuka and Sayuri blew it for everyone, so if you getting mad at someone, start with them first."

"Akane is the reason I'm single now," Yayoi argued, rubbing her cheek.

"You're single because you have shitty taste in boys," Kikuko said with a sigh. "Look, we need to figure out a better way to ply Akane if we're going to get her officially off the market again and open things back up for the rest of us."

"Why don't we just skip a district over?" Shizuya asked, pulling out several fliers for neighboring high schools. "There's bound to be plenty of single guys who don't even know who Akane is and we'll not even have to bother with Akane."

"That's a lot of work just for a boyfriend," Kikuko pointed out.

"And so is convincing Akane to date a guy!" Shizuya countered, slapping her hand on the table again. "At least give it more thought than not wanting to commute a little more to see your boyfriend. I mean, I assume all three of us are here because we don't like being single!"

"It's a possibility," Yayoi decided to consider giving a small bit of effort in this. Furinkan had a decent set of boys, but they were incredibly dumb even for boys. "But I don't like swimming out of my waters just because Akane got a wild hair up her butt and dumped him again."

"The last time wasn't this bad," Kikuko said, shaking her head in remembrance. "Most of the guys figured there's no way even Saotome could handle Nabiki for too long so they didn't jump too hard at her."

"Hey, I don't like having to poach other girl's water," Shizuya defended herself, "But I'm not pinning my hopes on Akane listening to us, if at all."

All this talk of fishing gave Yayoi an idea. "Hey… what if we got one of those magic fishing poles? Then Ranma could easily get Akane back."

Kikuko grimaced at that, while Shizuya gasped in recollection. "Yeah, it turned Ranma gay for Ryoga, so maybe it'll turn Akane straight for Ranma!"

"Come on, would that even work?" Kikuko asked.

"I'm willing to try anything if it means she stops being an insufferable bitch!" Yayoi hissed.

"How interesting," Ukyo said, causing all three conspirators to freeze up. "Oh don't mind me, keep talking about my friend like that, I want to hear how deep you dig yourselves." Ukyo smiled, the sunny exterior giving off a rather chilling vibe underneath.

"We're sorry," the three chorused. Maybe they were sorry they were caught, but it was better to apologize before they did something to set the chef off.

"Nah, it's cool," Ukyo said, waving them off. "I mean, you are conspiring against my friend and that pisses me off like you won't believe but I ain't gonna throw out paying customers on that."

Yayoi cringed and tried to put Shizuya between Ukyo and herself.

"However, I can understand the frustration you lot must be having." The three looked towards the chef in confusion, even halting the struggle between the two girls. "After all, I'd be afraid of my ability to land a guy if all the hits I ever got were of fish throwing themselves onto my boat."

"H-hey," Shizuya protested weakly, not liking the implication that the boys they had dated up to now had just been desperate to have a girlfriend and not because they actually liked them. Yayoi turned red as Kikuko looked down at the table.

"Ah well, I'm sure once you stop being so petty, you're probably very nice." Ukyo laughed, slapping her thigh in an effort to keep from losing control. "I mean, if the guys over in the next town over don't know you're all just silver medals to the guys of Furinkan, then they'll probably take you on looks alone."

"You…" Yayoi was three seconds from getting her shit ruined forever, but was tackled and held down by her friends.

"Don't worry sugar, I'm not one to throw people out of my restaurant for good." Ukyo spun the spatula off her back and slammed the handle into the floor. "However! I will give you some free advice: If you're going to make plots against my friend, then you shouldn't do it in my place."

Shizuya pulled the thrashing Yayoi, whom was screaming unintelligible insults at Ukyo, out of the booth. Kikuko looked at Ukyo and sighed, bowing significantly.

"I'm sorry about my friends… and myself as well," Kikuko said. "We eat here everyday and usually everyone's in a better mood."

Ukyo waved off the apology. "No harm done, but make sure it stays that way and I won't have to hunt any of you down. I trailed Ranma for ten years, I doubt some boy crazy bitches will be hard to find."

Kikuko turned and left, and Ukyo almost felt bad.

"So that's what's going on." Ukyo had gathered from Akane's appearance earlier something big had gone down. Though the youngest Tendo had not said anything directly, the okonomiyaki chef could understand that her friend had come to a very personal revelation. "Just more crap to help her deal with, but that's fine by me."

She nodded and turned to go back to work, her mind satisfied with everything as presented. But somewhere deep in her subconscious, a door opened up…

* * *

Arms folded, Ranma walked down the road towards the Tendo home, doing what he had been doing since ran off into the night yesterday: trying to figure out for the life of him why his three fiancees were suddenly his ex-fiancees. To his vexation, aside from that disastrous date he couldn't get why they would be so angry. It wasn't the first time something like this happened–though the vegan zombie tourists and X Japan joining the fight were a bit much.

All he had were Akane's reasons, really, and how was it any different from what she normally accused him of doing? "You always say I'm doing something stupid, mean, or perverted. If you didn't like it before, why did you suddenly decide to now?"

He kicked a small rock for the crime of being in his path. What got him the most was that he looked like nothing but the bad guy.

"Like you didn't do anything either!" he snapped out aloud. He took a breath to steady himself, allowing a calm to return to him. "I mean, why should I be held responsible for what they decided? I didn't ask for any of this either."

That thought rang hollow, because he no longer had any of this. "It's so stupid, why do I feel this bad about it?"

The darkness brought him silence when he demanded answers.

"Ah, that's right." He allowed himself the indulgence of wanting something more than food. "I guess I did like it after a while. This whole thing became the way things were pretty fast, I guess I just got used to it." He had grown lax and had expected things to remain like they were forever, not realizing that they still had desires that didn't involve him.

But still, why did he want to go back? He was miserable, they were miserable, everyone made each other miserable. Wasn't it better this way, where they could pursue what made them happy? Wasn't it that Ranma Saotome was wholly unnecessary to them, a needless irritant in their lives?

Shame that Ryoga decided that now of all times was the perfect moment to smash Ranma and his emerging epiphany with his umbrella, sending him skipping like a stone until he hit a wall. Falling out the neat imprint his body made in the wall, Ranma shook his head and looked up in disbelief at Ryoga, who looked more like a walking corpse than anything else.

"What's your problem, P-chan?!"

"You are… you've ruined everything…" Ryoga answered, his voice as empty as his glazed over eyes.

Okay, that was kind of creepy. Still, Ranma let his train of thought careen off into the abyss and explode, got ready for some much needed stress relief. "I'm getting that a lot, lately…"

When Ryoga lunged with the umbrella again, Ranma effortlessly parried the weapon, and thrashed Ryoga with a barrage of punches before kicking him back. "So you can understand I'm not in a good mood either!"

Sliding along on his back, Ryoga managed to flip back onto his feet and stopped himself. "It's all your fault… because of how much of an insufferable jerk you are… Akane's completely closed her heart…"

Okay, this was starting to weird Ranma out. Not only was Ryoga looking like walking corpse, he was making as much sense as one too. "Oh what, Akane throw you out once she didn't need to make me jealous anymore?"

"You made her completely hate all men!" Ryoga quickly snapped back. Even in his zombie esque state, he could not bear to repeat her revelation, he did not want to even conceive of the notion!

"I'm pretty sure she was like that when I got here!" He suddenly dodged another umbrella stab, barely. He had to give it to Ryoga, in this state he was actually hard to read, it almost made this a challenge.

Almost. Avoiding several more stabs, Ranma blocked the end of the umbrella with his open palm and grabbed it. Unable to wrench it from his grip, Ryoga growled. "You don't get it… s-she even hates me now… and it's all because of you!"

Swinging up, he yanked Ranma into the air and sent him flying. With a smart recovery, he landed on the top of a street lamp and looked down at Ryoga. "Ha, she hates you too? You must've really cocked it up trying to catch her off the rebound!"

Aiming his umbrella like a javelin, Ryoga pitched it at Ranma, who jumped and flipped over it before landing atop the light again. "Ha, ha!"

The mailbox that Ryoga threw right after, however, was dead on target and Ranma went crashing into the river.

"Just flow down into the underworld and die Ranma…" Ryoga said, not even a bit of joy in his voice.

However, any potential victory was lost when a very furious, and very female, Ranma emerged from the river like a kraken. Water flew everywhere, but the lost boy got back far enough to avoid getting his curse triggered.

"RYOGA!" she shrieked, coming down from her jump with a kick, which was blocked by Ryoga's forearm. She balanced precariously on his arm for a few seconds, before Ryoga threw the redhead back.

"Why can't you just die?" Ryoga moaned, showing no defensive posture as he started crying tears of pure rage. "If only you weren't here, if only…!"

"Shut up!" Ranma screamed, surging in and ducking under Ryoga's right hook, weaving in and slamming hundreds of lefts into Ryoga's mid-section. Though frailer and lacking power, the insane speed, volume and smaller shape pierced straight through whatever defenses the Hibiki lad had left.

"UGHLK!" Ryoga dry heaved, his respiratory system jamming up from the sudden, violent evacuation of all the air is his body.

"Don't blame me because you're not man enough to get the job done!" Ranma snapped, hopping from foot to foot with nervous energy. She was about to knock Ryoga into next week, but she needed another opening. "So you struck out with Akane, who cares? Why don't you take some responsibility for yourself!?"

"Be quiet…" Ryoga moaned, feeling as though his body was crumbling to dust. Everything hurt so much, ever since he heard those words. "Just stop talking and get over here so I can kill you."

"As if you ever could you moron!" Ranma cried, charging in at high speed.

Ryoga reached for the redhead with his left, but was too slow as she ducked inside his reach. Stopping and turning, she twisted herself into a body attack, slamming herself into Ryoga's chest and transferring her momentum into him, shunting the lost boy backwards and off balance. Not one to miss the opportunity, Ranma sprang in and began to bury Ryoga under an avalanche of punches.

"No…" Ryoga whimpered, curling up as he tried to defend against the stinging blows. "No… Curse you Ranma!"

"Hey Hibiki!" Ranma said, leaping into the air. "Why don't you curse yourself!?" The lost boy's guard slipped just a tad, and the redhead's fist buried itself into Ryoga's jaw countless times in the space of a second. The Hibiki lad's arms flailed helplessly as he lost all sense of balance and fell down to the ground flat on his back, eyes spinning.

The instant she touched down, Ranma sprang back into the air and came down with both feet on Ryoga's face, cratering the ground and burying his head into the concrete.

"And stay down." She was breathing heavy and worse yet, she had gotten pissed off right as she was getting into the fight and enjoying it for once. Still, her curse being activated meant she couldn't fuck around anymore, lest Ryoga make good on his threat.

"Pigtailed Girl!" Kuno's sob filled voice filled the area, as the Kendoist came charging in, arms thrown wide open. "Leap into my arms and comfort your beloved in these terrible times!"

Ranma kicked him into the river without a second of thought.

"Oh your affection does warm my heart so!" Kuno exclaimed, as he immediately popped out of the water, running towards Ranma again. Paradoxically, his hair wasn't even wet despite being completely submerged. "But you must listen to my words, because a great tragedy has befallen your sister wife."

Ranma punched him, sending the kendoist skipping off the ground where he rested on the riverbank.

"Are you as upset as I?" Kuno stood up again, as if he hadn't been touched. "Has the news of the terrible deed that foul cur Saotome has done to Akane in revenge?"

"I did nothing!" Ranma snapped, forgetting he was a girl right then and feeling the need to defend himself.

Kuno laughed, as though she was playing a gag on him. "Of course not, my pigtailed goddess. But the foul one has unleashed a terrible curse upon the fair Akane Tendo, who had finally broken his spell on her!" He began to sob piously, as though moved by her dumping Ranma.

That kindly tore it and the redhead ran forward and grabbed Kuno by the front of his shirt. "I said, I ain't done nothin'!" She punctuated this by turning and hurling him into a far wall. He made a lovely indention in the concrete and he remained posed there, upside down even.

"That hurt you know," he said simply, eyeing his assailant haughtily.

Sometimes Ranma swore this idiot took hits better than Ryoga!

"Be that as it may, I have come to ask your assistance as you are rather close to Akane Tendo." Kuno simply removed himself from the wall as if it hadn't happened.

"Close, hah." Ranma turned away, bitterness nearly choking him. "As if we could be close anymore."

Kuno nodded in understanding. "The curse upon her is a vile one, yes, with my passion and love for Akane, and your youthful energy, we can free her from the new burden she bears at his hand!"

"What are you on about now?!" Ranma stamped her foot in frustration. "You know, what? I'm not even going to bother! If you want my help, come over here and let me punch you in the face a few thousand times"

"Very well!" Kuno said, drawing his bokken and running straight for Ranma. "I shall keep count with all my might!"

* * *

Akane laid on her bed, snuggling close to Shampoo with obvious pleasure. Right now, everything was settling down again after the tumultuous encounter with her sisters. But it didn't really matter too much right now because Akane was finally being true to herself and not living for anyone else's lies.

"This is so great," Akane murmured, feeling content to just lay there in this bed and just forget the world.

"Shampoo good kisser, is only possible outcome." Shampoo feigned modesty for a second before giggling gently.

"I remember when you first kissed Ranma way back, I thought you killed him."

"Shampoo give best at everything. If last kiss, is too, too good way to go yes?"

"I don't know, not being able to get more of them would probably be a good argument against dying."

"Flatter Shampoo more."

The two broke out into giggles, basking in the moment for what it was worth.

Akane looked from Shampoo to the ceiling, and heaved a relaxed sigh. "I've never been kissed like that before, you know. The closest thing I had to a real kiss was when Ranma was crazy from the Neko-ken. It wasn't even a real kiss though, he just pushed his lips to mine while sniffing my face."

She laughed. "Those howler monkeys I call classmates, though, they made a huge deal about it." Her gaze fell back to Shampoo, who snorted at the very thought.

"Like they know what real kiss is." She then grinned. "Tomboy not know what was real kiss either."

Akane put on an embarrassed pout. "Well I know _now."_

Resting a hand to caress her stomach, Shampoo kissed Akane again and was eagerly reciprocated.

"I'm sorry." Shampoo didn't expect to hear that from Akane, as they pulled away.

"What sorry for?"

Akane sighed. "I've turned your whole life upside down, and-"

Shampoo interrupted her with a much deeper, longer kiss. Caught off guard only briefly, Akane returned the kiss with a soft but content moan. Before long, Akane's attempt at guilt-driven self-depreciation were soon turned to mush by a creative rolling of the tongue or seven.

"Tomboy no do anything," Shampoo whispered as she gently pulled back from the other girl, left with her cheeks flushed and a small pant escaping her lips. "Shampoo life upside down moment Ranma beat Shampoo in fight."

She pulled Akane close to her, and nuzzled her face. "Tomboy help Shampoo. Still can no go back, but things better, yes? Shampoo survive and be happy, that is what Shampoo is wanting and is getting now that Ranma no only thing that matter."

Akane nodded slowly, as it began to settle in. This chapter on her life was really at an end, and the next one was now hers to write without Ranma as a central character. She hugged Shampoo back and hummed happily.

"I appreciate your gratitude then," she all but purred.

Shampoo chuckled. "This no Shampoo gratitude."

Akane drew back, a bit perplexed. "If making out like this isn't your gratitude, what is?"

The mischievous and smoldering look Shampoo gave Akane in reply caused her face to bloom into a bright blush as it gave her all the answer she needed. "O-oh my…"

"Tomboy want Shampoo gratitude?" Shampoo whispered as she drew Akane close again.

Steam practically rising from the top of her head, Akane nodded. "Y-yes please."

* * *

Ranma dodged another of Kuno's blows easily, rolling to the left and then forward, positioning herself behind the mad kendoist. The river, however, was not spared the air pressure from Kuno's mighty swing and a huge gout of water flew into the air.

"Is that it?" Ranma taunted, dancing back as Kuno turned around. "I could have seen that attack blindfolded!"

"Strike me with great vigor, Pigtailed Girl!" he answered as he performed another powerful, but wide strike.

"Stop swinging and I will, jerkass!" She leaped in and kicked him in the chest while his guard was down.

Kuno retreated for three steps before he regained his footing. "As usual, your prowess is indeed one with few peers! Why serve that bastard, who has tormented Akane Tendo so?"

"Tormented her? She started it!" Ranma shouted, sliding in and taking his feet out from under him. Spring up, she uppercutted him in the mid-section, before twisting and throwing him into the ground. This was followed up by dropping a knee to his chest, before the redhead daintily hopped back and kicked him away.

"You have witnessed her resolve against Saotome?" Kuno inquired, taking to his feet after he finally came to a stop. "Truly, Akane Tendo is woman far beyond measure. Oh how there should be a hundred poems to recall her bravery for the future generations!"

"Akane this, Akane that. I'm almost getting sick listening to you!" Ranma snapped, stamping a foot against the ground. "Why don't you just go bother her then if I'm not even worth your time focusing on!"

"Because I cannot heal her heart alone. I am only a man, and thanks to Saotome's wrath, Akane's been overcome with a cruel and abnormal hatred for men. I cannot speak or reason with her, thanks to that vile curse, but you… you who have suffered his torment alongside her, can talk sense into her, to see that her hate is unfounded!"

"You know what? Forget almost getting sick, I'm about ready to throw up now!" Ranma attacked, but Kuno managed to block her kick with the flat of his bokken. "She hates you!"

_"I hate you."_

Ranma felt something like a clench in her chest, as Akane's words suddenly echoed. In the brief moment of hesitation, she allowed Kuno to gain his footing and push her back.

"I see he has fed you naught but lies!" Kuno threw her back from him. "Akane Tendo denies her true feelings, but underneath her violence there is genuine affection!"

"Is that why whenever I mention you, she trembles with rage?" Ranma asked, landing in a crouch unharmed. "She's never said a single thing good about you to me!" She ran forward and threw another kick, which Kuno deftly blocked once more.

"Compared to the vitriol she exchanges with that dog, she speaks rather highly of me!" Kuno pushed again, but Ranma was ready this time, using the force of the shove to spun herself around, clocking him perfectly in the jaw.

As Kuno staggered back, dazed by the hit, Ranma caught herself and stopped. Kuno was a blathering, oblivious idiot, there was no way that Akane liked him at all. For how much he loved her, he never once bothered to listen to whenever she said no!

"_You never consider my feelings, because you can't consider anyone or anything but yourself."_

Akane's indictment caused yet another brief hesitation, allowing Kuno to lunge for a strike to Ranma's head. It almost connected, but Ranma was just fast enough to kick Kuno in the side of the head and send him flipping through the air before landing face down in the street.

"Who are you calling a dog!?" Ranma lowered her leg.

Kuno got back up, albeit slowly. "I speak of the subhuman who condemned her to a life of misery, denied the warmth of her destined love! I speak of the man who refuses her happiness, regardless of her heart's desires! With all my heart… I speak of the foul creature that desires little else other than to see her suffer for his own enjoyment."

He stood tall and readied his bokken. "That wretch is none but Ranma Saotome, and as the man who loves her, I will grant her the happiness she desires, yours as well my pigtailed goddess!"

Ninety-Nine percent of the words that came out of Tatewaki's mouth were bullshit. But there was always that rare day when he spouted some seriously relevant shit, and today to Ranma's chagrin, nearly every word cut into her.

_"I'm tired of living for you, you stupid idiot. I want to live my own life. Where I am happy. Without you. So I'm done with you."_

"Pigtailed Girl, your affections for me have made my legs grow weak." Kuno's head was swimming and he was swaying back and forth. His vision blurred and he almost fainted, but he managed to hold on despite himself. "But I still stand, for the happiness of my lady loves! So break free… so we may save Akane from her unnaturall fate!"

Ranma didn't hear Kuno, wasn't even seeing Kuno, lost inside her own head for the moment. This idiot could see it, Ryoga could see it. They were saying she was the one who did this to her. To all of them!

A snarl escaped her lips, causing Kuno to stagger back. The redhead began to glow a very slight red, as she began to funnel the frustrations and fear into something wholly terrible for Kuno. Alas, the kendoist did not recognize the danger for what it was and only dug in his heels.

"Damn you Akane." Her breathing ragged, Ranma free form popped the knuckles on both her hands.

"Damn you Shampoo," she snarled again, and ready to charge Kuno.

"Damn you Ukyo."

Like a missile, Ranma shot towards Kuno with a load of ill intent.

"That's it my love." Kuno dropped his bokken and threw wide his arms. "Leap into my arms and let us confirm our mutual love!"

The redhead reached her target and began swinging wildly, not stopping until one particular blow sent Kuno rocketing into the sky. All told, she swung for 15 seconds, hitting Kuno a staggering 624,590 times in that stretch. Panting, she doubled over with hands on her knees, as Kuno came back down and crashed through the roof of a nearby house.

"I'm not gonna be blamed for all of this," Ranma whispered, gasping for air as she came down from her ragesplosion. "It takes two to tango, and you were all fighting for a chance to be my dance partner!"

She clenched her fists tighter. "I ain't gonna be hung out to dry without having my say, and I'm gonna have my say!"

Before she could take two steps, Mousse landed in front of her, hands folded and hidden in the sleeves of his long robes… wait, why was he wearing black now. Style change?

"If I were you, Ranma, I would reconsider going there with anger," he said to the tanuki statue on the street corner in front of Ranma.

Her lingering anger suppressed but not removed, Ranma rolled her eyes in frustration. "Mousse! Glasses! And what the hell are you doing here, now? Shouldn't you be barking up Shampoo's tree since she dumped me?"

Pulling his glasses over his eyes and realizing he was talking to a statue, Mousse attempted to play it off as him coolly not directly speaking to Ranma. "Were that the case I would gladly, however the old bag has seen fit to expel Shampoo from our village as punishment for giving up on you. As such, I am not allowed even to go near Shampoo, under harsh penalty."

"Worse than what you normally deal with?" Ranma growled.

Mousse nodded. "That said, Ranma, I seek nothing else but Shampoo's happiness."

"Like the last two bozos for Akane, yeah."

"That is why…" Mousse grimaced and then looked at Ranma. "… You must win Shampoo's heart back, so she may once again be considered an Amazon!"

Ranma blinked a few times. "Huh?"

"And I intend to help you."

The gears in Ranma's head kind of jammed there, gummed up by all the fuck his brain was once again full of.

* * *

_An indeterminate time ago…_

"You cannot possibly be serious," Cologne said to Mousse as he stood at the foot of a ramp leading up to a ship moored in Tokyo Bay.

"I should be saying the same of you, old witch!" Mousse returned. "Just like that, we're leaving Shampoo here an exile?!"

Cologne nodded. "That is the plan, yes. I've told you that six times since we left last night."

"I don't remember those times," Mousse replied.

"Clearly you do instinctively, because you're standing outside of my reach and bringing it up again like the fool you are." Cologne brandished her staff to emphasize the beatings Mousse received for his insolence six times prior.

Mousse snorted. "Whatever the case, I am not abandoning her to this fate, cast out of her home, denying her a chance to ever see it again!"

Cologne hummed. "And you intend to do that, how? She is not merely an outsider, she is an exile, the law does not apply to her. Even if by chance you convince her to come back with you as your wife, you will simply be exiled too."

Letting out a haughty "Hmph", Mousse adjusted his glasses. "I know well enough of the laws, you mummy. It is not my intention to take Shampoo for myself, but to help Ranma win her affection once again!"

At that, Cologne stared at this idiot of a boy in mild disbelief. "Really now?"

"All that matters to me is Shampoo's happiness! If it means that I must coax her into opening her heart again to someone other than myself, then so be it! Her resuming of her pursuit of Ranma makes her punishment void and thus no longer an exile."

Cologne's blank stare went unchanged. "You do realize that this does not help your aspirations, yes?"

"What is important is that she is happy." And so grateful that she realizes her love for him and aids him in killing Ranma, thus ensuring no obstacle for their love and return to the village. Of course, Mousse had no need to say that. Indeed, Cologne could read him like she could read Shampoo.

"I see… very well then, do as you please," she said.

"Don't argue with me on–wait, I have your permission?" Well, this was surprising but not unwelcome to Mousse.

"As long as you can convince Shampoo to resume her quest to marry Ranma, I see no problem with what you're doing and you have my express permission. In fact, we will remain here and await news from you… but lay low of course so as to not arouse suspicion," Cologne replied. Of course, once Shampoo and Ranma were no longer on the outs, Mousse and his feelings would be consigned to the curb by means of a swift kick–and that was perfectly fine with Cologne if it meant having Shampoo back in her's and the village's good graces.

Mousse nodded and clenched a fist. "Just you wait! I will bring Shampoo back into the fold, and you will call her a member of our tribe once again!"

_An indeterminate time later…_

"And that is why I am here to assist you," Mousse said.

Ranma unfortunately did not hear Mousse's explanation (with internal machinations obviously removed) of the events that brought him back to Nerima, her internal operating system was still not responding.

By means of a kettle of hot water, Mousse reset Ranma, who sputtered back into thought. "Huh? Mousse? What are you doing here?!"

"I'm here to help you get Shampoo back," he replied.

Ranma could've paused to consider any possible ulterior motives of Mousse's, but having someone in his corner to help him rather than push his shit in overrode everything else. "Really?!"

Mousse nodded, not feeling the slightest bit of shame that when this was over, he would hopefully be burying Ranma's corpse somewhere no one would find it. "Absolutely, Shampoo is a proud warrior, and she deserves nothing but the pride and honor of our village, not the shame of exile. Thus, it is my intent to help you win her love!"

He held his chin between his index finger and thumb as he smirked smugly. "After all, I know all of Shampoo's strengths and weaknesses, her hopes, dreams, desires, and fears. With my knowledge and your charm, winning her love again should be no problem for you, Saotome."

Ranma blinked a few times, and then took Mousse's hands in his own. "Mousse… thank you! You're a true friend!"

Not the slightest bit of shame, Mousse. "Heck, Ranma, I'll even help you win back Tendo and Kuonji. It would do you no good to just have one girl on your arm."

A small slice of heaven, before Mousse cast him to hell, this was all it was. It was to Mousse's enjoyment that the very desperate Ranma gobbled up every word.

"I'll take it! What do I do? What do I have to do?!"

Mousse took his hands from Ranma and once again cradled his chin as he contemplated. "Whatever alliance they have forged is only as strong as their friendship. The easiest thing would be to turn them all against one another, by wooing one or two or all three of them without the others knowing until the right moment."

Ranma gasped. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?!" Fire burned in his eyes, as he punched his palm. "I can seduce Shampoo, and that'll send Akane and Ukyo into a rage, or I can go after Ucchan, and that'll make Shampoo and Akane super mad, or I can go after Akane, and make Shampoo and Ukyo super insane because this was her stupid idea!"

On that note, he made his decision. "Oh yeah, I'm going after Akane!" He looked to Mousse with a dangerous grin. "All right, give me some pointers, how should I go about this?!"

"Well, some feigned humility would help."

Ranma stopped. "What."

"You should play to Akane's sympathies, and let her see how much you need her. After all, Akane is by what I've seen a hopelessly altruistic girl, putting the needs of others before herself even if reluctantly."

Ranma let out a snort. "I guess."

"Good, in order to win her, you need to come off as absolutely pathetic, hopeless without her in your life!" Mousse said.

"How pathetic?" Ranma wasn't about to start bawling like an idiot in front of her, begging for attention like Mousse did Shampoo.

Mousse hummed. "Well, when was the last time you saw her?"

"Yesterday, when I left…"

"That's perfectly long enough. You need to go over there, looking absolutely demolished, practically on the verge of death and deep in despair."

"In other words like Ryoga after I kicked his shit in."

"You're catching on."

Ranma folded his arms and hummed. "Yeah, I get that much, but how am I supposed to pull off looking that bad to Akane after only one day?"

Mousse grinned. "Give me about five minutes and I'll have you looking lower than dirt."

Two minutes and seventeen seconds later, a savagely beaten Ranma staggered into the living room of the Tendo home. "I… I'm home…"

With his weak greeting, he collapsed onto the floor in front of the table, where Nabiki was dividing her attention between her homework and quietly brooding after the verbal shellacking she received from Akane.

She looked down at him. "Oh, so are you here to beg for Akane to take you back?"

"Y-yes," he weakly replied.

One of Nabiki's eyebrows crept upward. "Really?"

Unsteady as a newborn foal, Ranma slowly got up and staggered a bit. Mousse got a bit overzealous in dirtying him up for his confrontation with Akane. Oh well, at least he wouldn't have to fake any tears. "W-where is she?"

"Oh, she's upstairs with Shampoo. I wouldn't go up there if I were you." Kasumi reported hearing strange sounds coming from there when she had gone up to bed, and was naturally far too disturbed to investigate further.

Great, Shampoo would make it difficult but not impossible. Ranma would just have to play up how pathetic he was to garner her sympathies as well. "Oh… okay…"

He slowly hobbled for the stairs. Watching him shamble past, Nabiki let out a brief hum. Brief because any thoughts that prompted the hum were immediately destroyed by a barrage of cannons, missiles, rockets, and orbital-based lasers commanded by the Nabiki Tendo Self-Preservation Society.

"Pfft, Akane's right, Kasumi can have that hot mess if she wants him to be so happy," she muttered.

Ranma looked back. "Huh?"

"Nothing, go on and say hello to your ex-girlfriends."

Giving Nabiki an annoyed look, Ranma turned and began his way up the stairs a step at a time–honestly, Mousse did not have to hit him across the legs so many times with those lead pipes. As he hobbled his way up, he inwardly envisioned how it would play out.

_In Ranma's heavily damaged mind…_

Answering the knock at her door, Akane opened it to find Ranma standing there looking as if he had barely come back alive from the war. Wars. All of them. "Ranma!"

Ranma opened his mouth to speak, before he fell into Akane's arms, hardly able to stand anymore under his own power. "Akane… I made it back to you…"

"W-what happened?!" She could not believe the devastation that had been wrought upon the man she once loved, then cruelly turned away. "Who did this to you?!"

"Ryoga… K-Kuno… Happosai… everyone who was ever after you… they came out of nowhere, from the trees, from the sky, from under the ground itself. They heard… they heard we were through, so they came here… f-for you…"

Akane gasped in horror. "Then why…?"

"I couldn't let them… a-after how I mistreated you… I couldn't let you suffer at their hands. I fought them all… with everything I had… the old toad was the hardest, but I managed to even beat him. I can't bear to see you sad, Akane… I did it… so you could be…" The life began to leave Ranma's eyes. "… happy…"

"No, Ranma!" Akane pleaded. "Oh no, this is all my fault, I should've never dumped you! Ranma! Please, speak to me! Ranma! Don't die!"

She hugged him tightly as tears began pouring down her cheeks. "You idiot! I'm sorry! Please just be all right! I l-l-like you, I really do like you, I want you to be my fiance again! Just don't die on me!"

One of her tears fell upon Ranma's face, and soon the life returned to his eyes. "… Akane… I forgive you…"

Seeing he was still alive, Akane smiled brightly. "Oh Ranma!"

_Seriously, the legs were one thing, but hitting him in the head that many times…_

By the time he reached the top of the stairs and approached Akane's door, Ranma could hardly wait to put on his act. In a few seconds, Akane was going to be-

"… Putty in Shampoo's hands now, yes?"

Yes, that was right! Wait.

"Huh?" Ranma whispered, before he heard coming through the door a sound he never quite heard before. It was an elevated, excited panting, and what made it sound so strange to him was that it sounded like Akane.

"Yes… oh y-yes~!" That was definitely Akane, and she did not sound like she was in pain.

Suddenly feeling a lot less injured, Ranma took a step back from the door and stared at it. What… what was going on in there?

"Not even best part." There was Shampoo's voice again. Ranma was confused, she was using that husky, "seduce Ranma" voice that he found really hard (but never failed) to say no to. "When Shampoo do this…"

"AHH-AHN!" And that was Akane making sounds he'd NEVER heard her make, with the closest to it possibly being whenever she ate some chocolate when she was really craving it.

"It okay, Tomboy let it all out. It feel too, too good, yes?"

Ranma's face began to glow a bright red, as the sounds coming through the door began to paint a picture in his head he'd never thought possible, even in his wildest daydreams!

"Ah… your f-fingers… oh m-my goodness…"

They weren't…

"Mmhm… Shampoo do it again, yes? Find different spot, and…"

They couldn't possibly be…

"AHN! YES!"

Ranma's eyes grew wide. They totally were.

"Why didn't I do this sooner~?"

They were doing perverted stuff. With each other. After dumping him.

"Because Tomboy too, too pent up… but not no more."

Fuck playing the injured loser, he wasn't going to stand for this… this… _**hypocrisy!**_

Marching up to the door he slammed it open. "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS SHIT?!"

This shit turned out to be Shampoo giving Akane a Shiatsu Massage. They were both fully clothed, and aside from Akane lying on her stomach and biting into her bedsheet as Shampoo straddled her legs, there was nothing particularly scintillating like the scene their racket painted in his head.

Both girls stared at Ranma as he stared back at them.

"Shampoo giving Tomboy massage, what it look like?" Shampoo answered flatly.

Ranma's bemusement gave way back to indignation. "It sounded like you were…! Were…!"

"Were what?" Akane asked levelly.

"You know…!"

"Ranma, shut up, what are you even doing here? And why do you look like you got attacked by wild dogs?"

More like a wild Mousse with a lead pipe, but to digress, he needed to get back to his script. "I uh… it was Ryoga! And Kuno! And Happosai! There were uh, dozens of them!"

"Dozens of Kunos, Ryogas, and Happosais?" Akane asked.

"No! A bunch of guys, they wanted to come here and uh… do perverted stuff to you and I had just happened to be by and I saw what they were doing so I fought them!" he quickly explained while cursing them for spoiling the dramatic mood he had planned before.

"Just happened to?" Akane was obviously not buying it.

"It's true! I barely beat them all, I almost died! I did it because I still l-l-l-li…" Oh God damn it, why was he freezing up now? He just had to tell her how he felt-

"I don't want to hear it, go away." And just like that he was dismissed, defeated, and done with.

"Damn Akane, will you just let me speak?!" Ranma yelled at her. "This is really hard for me-"

"I don't really care what you have to say. There's nothing to say."

"I'm trying to say that I li…!"

Akane just shook her head. "Pathetic."

Shampoo got off her back and walked over to Ranma. "Ranma, Shampoo have question."

Ranma stopped, thankful he didn't have to try to say that damn word. "What?"

"Ranma call Tomboy not cute, macho, wide, flatchested, yes?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Make fun of Tomboy cooking, fighting, and things Tomboy like doing, yes?"

"Yes," Akane answered for Ranma.

"Hey, I only do it because-!"

"But Ranma can't say Ranma like Tomboy."

Ranma stopped there, the accusation stinging deep. At his silence, Shampoo nodded and turned around, walking back over to Akane and sitting next to her. "Shampoo like Akane. Shampoo think Akane too, too nice, and too, too cute. Shampoo not afraid to say that. Shampoo not afraid to hold Akane hand or kiss or give too, too good massage. Shampoo can do this, and only be nice to Akane after one day. Why so hard for Ranma?"

Ranma kind of got hung up on the kiss part. "K-Kiss? But you're both…!"

Shampoo turned to face Akane, and pulled her up into a sitting position before giving her a relatively chaste kiss. Surprised at first that Shampoo would do this in front of Ranma, Akane caught a glimpse of the swirl of emotions that was twisting up his face, and took it further by all but shoving her tongue down Shampoo's throat.

Ranma Saotome is a teenaged boy. However, Ranma Saotome is an extremely sexually repressed teenaged boy who well into his teen years has never had the opportunity to satisfy the hormonal urges that came with being a teenaged boy thanks to the nonstop proximity of his old man, being student at an all boys school, and generally having any and all possible sexual urges beaten out of him by his never ending training journeys, the Tendos, and the curse that he never found useful beyond grabbing free stuff.

Therefore, when faced with two attractive girls that he was pseudo-romantically entwined with making out with resounding sloppiness, he once again kicked himself in the mouth.

"What are you doing?! That's disgusting!"

Akane had to hand it to Nabiki, there was really something about this schadenfreude to be enjoyed. She slowly pulled away from the kiss, which left Shampoo breathless for once, and turned to stare at Ranma.

"I'm… disgusting?" She asked.

Ranma tried to backpedal, to say something, anything, but Akane took him gently by his shoulders and walked him to her door. "Good night, Ranma."

Once he was past the threshold, she went back into her room and closed the door. As he stood there, still in shock, he realized the absolute significance of what just happened.

Akane didn't even bother to hit him, she just didn't care anymore. The flickers of recognition, of how badly he had screwed up, illuminated the darkness of his brain, albeit dimly. "I… I need… I need to go…"

He turned around and saw Kasumi standing in the doorway to her bedroom, watching him. "K-Kasumi…?"

Kasumi didn't immediately reply, she continued to stare at him, as if focused on an inner conflict. After a few moments, she awkwardly looked away. "Ah, I'm sorry Ranma-kun… goodnight…"

Without looking towards him, she retreated into her room and closed the door, sparing Ranma the sight of her silently berating herself for being everything Akane said she was.

Alone in the upstairs hallway, Ranma quietly went downstairs and back out the house, not even bothering to feign a limp as he went past Nabiki. Once outside, he found Mousse waiting by the pond.

"I take it everything went well?" Mousse asked.

Ranma responded to that by poking Mousse in the chest, and sending him falling into the pond. As a very indignant glasses-wearing duck surfaced and quacked obscenities at him, Ranma sat down at the grass and stared down at the water in silent contemplation…

For all of a second before he grabbed his head with both hands and yelled out in frustration. "AHHH! WHY IS THIS SO HARD?! CAN'T EVERYTHING JUST GO BACK TO NORMAL?!"

Mousse the duck hit him with a sign which read,"First off, fuck you for doing that, and second, did you think this would be easy?! What kind of man are you?!"

Ranma wondered when Mousse finally learned his old man's trick with them. Then Mousse flipped the sign around.

"I thought Ranma Saotome never lost," it read.

The duck was right. Ranma Saotome never lost. Sure he took a few good beatings, but in every battle he counted as one, he never lost one! This was just another battle, just like the Reversal Jewel, where wits and charm would be the victor rather than brute force or dramatics.

"You're right, Mousse… you're absolutely right…" Ranma got up. "I don't lose, and I'm definitely not losing here!"

Mousse flipped the sign again. "That's right, your manhood's on the line here!"

"Hell yeah it is!" Ranma agreed.

"So be the best man you can be!" As with Genma's signs, Ranma didn't care to ask where Mousse was able to flip them like that.

"I'll be even better than that!"

Mousse spread his wings in praise and held up another sign. "Then let's get back to the battle. I have another plan. Less pity, more unremitting sexiness!"

Ranma clenched a fist. "Oh yeah! Unremitting sexiness!"

He then stopped. "Wait, what?"

* * *

Ukyo hummed to herself as she wiped down the counter after finishing the lunch rush, the last of the crowd finally exiting to leave her alone. Akane and Shampoo were out grabbing a quick bite elsewhere, plus planning to hit up the market for a quick refill of spices for Shampoo's half of the menu. A smile creased her lips as she thought of how well her two friends got along, as well as how much better things had been for her financially.

Without the drain Ranma put on her books, Ukyo was looking at an almost complete turnaround from where she was when this whole thing started. It was almost amazing how simple it was to get back to where she could feel secure in her future again, something that had been in doubt for much of her life. For ten years, she had pursued Ranma in a single minded rush, her anger fueling her resentment, which in turn birthed the bastard son of hate: REVENGE.

But that was then, and well this was now, and she no longer needed to sleep in a grave next to Ranma, as the saying went.

Ukyo sighed, as she thought of her still semi-friend, wondering what had happened to him. She hadn't seen him since she dumped him, even though Akane and Shampoo had mentioned seeing him a few nights ago. While she didn't think of herself as ever going to marry him, she still wanted to be sure he was alright because she still cared about him.

The capacity of which was just as a friend looking out for another friend, not out of any repressed feelings for the jerk. She sighed again, as she began to clean her griddle, wondering just what was to become of her life now that he wasn't the center of it for the first time in a decade. This hadn't been how she had thought it'd go, or how she thought it'd be going forward.

She had pulled the central pillar out of her plans, and now she was reaping the downfall of her bitterness and hate.

Akane and Shampoo had helped a lot, even in the short time it had been since they had agreed to throw Ranma out. She had friends, real true friends, who she could depend on. It didn't hurt they were pretty cute together too, but so far nothing official had been announced to her regarding if the two were going to go out.

"It's silly to think," Ukyo muttered, moving on to check her supplies for the next crowd. "But those two go really well together." Hmm, a bit low on shrimp, she'd have to go back and grab some…

The door slid open rapidly, before clicking shut.

"Hey, I'm still cleaning, so it'll be a minute…" Ukyo trailed off as she saw Ranma standing there, staring at her.

He was disheveled and dirty looking, his face bore the fact that he'd been having trouble sleeping. The bags under his eyes, the slight paleness to his skin, he just looked like shit. Akane had told her Ranma wasn't at the dojo anymore but Ukyo had thought he might have tried shacking up with that one crazy bitch, what's her name.

Kodachi looked up from feeding a whole cow to Mr. Green Turtle, the feeling that her existence was being ignored again running down her spine.

"Ucchan," Ranma breathed, body starting to tremble.

"Don't call me that," Ukyo said, sighing. Fine, she'd deal with him right now, he looked too downtrodden to step on anymore. "So, you here for okonomiyaki or Akane?."

"Akane!?" Ranma's head whipped around as if he just woke up.

Ukyo sighed. "She's not here."

"Oh, oh…" Ranma deflated, but managed to fish enough for an okonomiyaki out of his pocket. "I thought she'd be here."

"Well she went to the market with Shampoo."

"S-Shampoo…" Ranma flinched a little and looked at the floor. "P-pork please."

"Well you're in luck because I still have some up front." Ukyo filed his reactions away for later. She reached in and pulled some of the pork belly out and began mixing the batter as well. "I see you learned how to pay for your food."

"I would have paid if you asked." It wasn't a total lie, but he really would have tried to haggle about it.

"Sure sure." Ukyo felt awkward, as she didn't know what to say to him now. "As long as you understand, we'll be able to get along."

"What about them?" Ranma tried to control his drooling, he hadn't had a decent bite since he disappeared off with Mousse. The training and planning for this was rigorous.

"My house, my rules. They'd understand." And if they wouldn't, she'd probably cut him off entirely, but there was no point in saying that aloud. He hadn't quite burned that bridge yet, lucky her.

"I guess." Ranma bowed his head, seemingly to try and get himself together. "So where does this leave you?"

"Come again?" Ukyo asked, pausing in her cooking to look at him.

"I mean, Akane and Shampoo are… together all the time," he said, trying his best to be slick about it while not trying to be sick about it. "Doesn't seem like that leaves much time for you."

"I got enough time for myself. I got my restaurant and that's good enough for me." Just for that, he was getting the old sauce from this morning and not the fresh she had whipped up an hour ago. "I'm not like you, who needs constant minding or else I start falling apart."

"Hey, I was just asking." Ranma placed the money on the counter and took the okonomiyaki. Hungrily, he tore into it, not even caring how it tasted.

"And I was just saying." Ukyo shook her head. He was still the same, even now as when they were kids.

"But you know," Ranma said, giving Ukyo a look. "I still think it's a waste that you're here by yourself while they're off doing whatever they want."

"They're people Ranma, they do things on their own." Ukyo couldn't believe it, he was trying to be a manipulative little bitch! "You know, kind of like the three of us did what we wanted and you had to deal?"

"Ah…" Ranma blushed, having been caught. "It's not like that! I'm just worried about you, y'know?"

Ukyo rolled her eyes. "Look, I appreciate your concern, but I'll appreciate you not trying to sweet talk me when you look like a zombie. It's kinda creepy and reduces the effect you have."

"That's not my fault!"

Nothing ever was."You can't take care of yourself is our fault?"

Ranma said nothing, turning away in a childish huff as she successfully hurt his feelings.

_He really hasn't changed_. Ukyo could see that little boy she used to play games with and go on adventures with, but back then his insensitivity was part of being a child. But now, it just made him look like a jerk. _How is that possible?_

"I don't get it," Ranma mumbled to himself, having finished the okonomiyaki.

"Get what?" Ukyo wondered if she should toss him out now that he had paid for and eaten his food.

"How you all could walk away from this." He turned back towards her, and gestured to his busted-ass self.

Was he serious. "In hindsight it really shouldn't have been so hard."

Ranma got up. "Come on, Ucchan-"

"Don't call me that."

He leaned against the counter, giving her the same pointed look he did back when he needed to recalibrate his sway over women thanks to that stupid jewel. "Ucchan, come on… you know you don't mean that."

Had Ranma not used that same trick before simply to reassure himself of his sexiness, Ukyo probably would've fallen for it. Instead, he got smacked across the lobby by her combat spatula.

"You ass! Do you really think I'm going to fall for that again?!" She yelled after he bounced off the wall and hit the floor. "Especially with you looking busted up like you are?!"

Ranma chuckled in reply, and pushed himself back up onto his feet. He looked down at himself, his ruined, filthy clothes, grimy skin, and grisly complexion, and let out a laugh. "I guess I really can't hold myself back then."

Ukyo took a step back, disturbed by that wording. "Ranma…"

Reaching behind his back, he pulled out a smoke bomb. "I guess I'll have to go all out!"

He then threw it to the ground, engulfing himself in a small cloud of harmless smoke. In the brief moment that Ukyo raised her spatula to protect her face, a blur dropped in from out of nowhere and into the smoke cloud.

"Kazama style secret technique," Mousse said quietly as he drew from his sleeves makeup tools. "Ultimate… makeup!"

Ukyo lowered her spatula as she heard something going on in the smoke cloud, ready for anything that could come out. Then the cloud suddenly dissipated.

"What."

There was Ranma, immaculately cleaned up, not a single hair out of place, perfectly tanned, and now dressed in a white Chinese style shirt and pants with a gold dragon design sewn into it. Ranma's look was one that commanded the sexy ladies to drop their panties, and if any others had been seeing him right then they probably would have on the spot.

Ukyo No-Sold it like Brock Lesnar vs. Spike Dudley circa 2002.

"Ranma, what the hell?" She asked.

Ranma once again leaned against the counter, giving Ukyo a flirtatious smile complete with a gleam from his perfect teeth. "Come on Ucchan, you know you like what you see. You would have to be completely sexless to be able to resist this."

Yet she was resisting, effortlessly even. "Maybe a few days ago, but you know what Ranma? I'm not attracted to you anymore."

Ranma's expression went blank.

She then hummed. "And really thinking about it, I don't think I ever was. I mean, you just said I was cute and I kind of latched onto that, and that wasn't really healthy."

And he went face first into the counter, creating a spider-web pattern of cracks in the surface.

"Oh, you're lucky I can afford to have that fixed," she said before Ranma let out a groan. "Ranma?"

"What is wrong with you…?"

Ukyo recoiled. "What is wrong with me?"

"You!" Ranma whirled around and jumped atop the stool he had been sitting on. "And those two! Look at me, I'm hot damn it!" To punctuate this statement, Ranma pulled his shirt off, exposing his bare, fantastically toned torso. "How can you look at this and say no?!"

Ukyo flushed at the display, but not from a surge of hormones. It was because she was embarrassed for him, as he looked ridiculous right now.

"You can't tell me I do nothing for you!" He flexed a little, trying to get a rise out of Ukyo. "Come on Ucchan…"

"I thought I said to not call me that," Ukyo said, covering her eyes in exasperation. "Look, put your shirt back on before someone comes in."

"Why? Afraid you might not be able to control yourself?"

"Because you're making a scene you empty headed jackass!" Ukyo was ready to smash him with her spatula. "Look at you, acting like a damn pervert!"

"I'm sexy and you know it, damn it!"

"No!" Ukyo swept the stool out from under him, leaving the Saotome heir to fall ungracefully to the floor. "Now put your shirt on and stop being a jackass."

Lying on the floor in perfect silence for a moment, Ranma heaved a disappointed sigh before sitting up and slowly putting on his shirt. "What did I do to deserve this?"

Ukyo shrugged her shoulders. "Why don't you look at what you did first before demanding answers from others?"

"I never did anything! What did I do? I got cursed and hitched up with a man-hating lesbian who starts unloading on me because she can't deal with a bunch of boys chasing her skirt! I did not start that fight!"

Ukyo narrowed her eyes at Ranma's words. "You didn't finish it, either."

"Oh yeah, and she gets a pass because she did?!"

"Yes, yes she does! She got tired of this, we all did! What happened at the festival was the last straw, Ranma!"

"How is it like that? I've had to put up with this mess too and handled it!"

"Because you were in the middle of everything, while we had bend over backwards for you!" Ukyo shrieked at him.

Panting, the two teenagers glared at each other. Ranma let out a snort. "Like you weren't in the middle of anything either."

"Huh?" Oh, Ukyo wanted to hear this.

"That weirdo crossdresser!" Who was currently disguised a trash can in the corner of the restaurant. "He's all over you and I have no idea why since he dresses and acts like a girl when he's not a telephone pole or Christmas Tree, or a skyscraper or something!"

"Tsubasa?! I'm not even attracted to that jerk!" Ukyo snapped back.

"And then Mousse, he's all over Shampoo!"

"You know as well as I do that she hates even the air he breathes."

"Don't even get me on the mountains and mountains of boys that seem to come out of the woodwork just to _look_ at that lezzy not-in-the-least-cute tomboy! You're all just as much chased after as I am, maybe even more! And don't say you don't like the attention because there's no way anyone wouldn't!"

That just kindly tore it. "News flash, asshole, but we hated it!" Ranma recoiled when she shrieked at him again, and from there Ukyo only turned the volume up to eleven. "We hated it because we wanted you and no one else! We had all our hopes and feelings pinned on your sorry ass and all we were good for to you was free food and making you feel like a man!"

She panted heavily for breath as her eyes began to water. Oh God, she was about to cry. "At the very best, we were just friends to you, just like when you and I were kids. And when it was bad, you treated Shampoo like she does Mousse, and me like I treat Tsubasa. And Akane… oh my God, Ranma why would you treat someone who's so nice like that? She's bad at being girly, worse even than you, but damn it she tried for you a lot, and you just treated her like crap!"

"Nice? She flipped a table on me for nothing!" Ranma fired back.

"And yet there you were trying to get back with her after she dumped you!"

"Because it's not supposed to be like this!"

"_Then what is it supposed to be like?!_" Ukyo growled, gripping her spatula to keep what little control of herself she had left. "How are things supposed to be, Ranma? With you at the center of the universe where everyone's concern leads right back to you?!"

Ranma grimaced at that, before he averted his gaze and clenched his fists. "I just want you to like me again."

Ukyo let out a bitter, breathless laugh. "That's not our problem now, is it? I don't think we can even be friends anymore."

He looked back at her, shocked. "What?"

Ukyo let out a sigh and wiped away the tears she had barely kept from falling. "You're a terrible person, Ranma. Do you realize how bad you made us all feel?"

"What about my feelings?" Ranma asked, almost a whisper with his gutted emotions.

Ukyo just wanted to hit him, but was afraid she couldn't be stopped until he was dead. "What about them? You don't care for ours unless we're adoring you. Say we do start chasing after you again? Then what? Is anything going to really change, or do you just want it back to where you were fine with everything?"

Ranma bowed his head at that. He just wanted everything back to the way it was, he couldn't handle this.

"Why do you even want us back? Akane's not going back, Shampoo sure ain't and neither am I. Get over it and yourself. You got dumped, move on already. You're free to have whatever girl you like."

"Free?" Ranma laughed, before snapping his head up in a determined look to stare Ukyo in the air. "You think I'm free?"

"I'm sure there are plenty of girls who'd fall for a guy with looks like yours. Hell, you'd have first pick of a whole bunch of desperate girls who would do anything to rub it in Akane's face that she ditched you." Ukyo said, sighing just a tad.

Ranma stood up, wiping his face once and giving Ukyo another look, one that conveyed a different kind of emotion.

"This is my manhood at stake Ukyo. I can't walk away, not from that." Ranma didn't break eye contact with the okonomiyaki chef for a long second. "I can't just throw that and all of this away, I can't lose here. This isn't over until I say so, even if you think it is."

She recognized that expression. It was the same as the same fond looks that she had seen him give Akane from time to time when he thought no one saw and vehemently deny or distract others from the moment he was called out on them. It was how he really felt underneath his bluster, social ineptitude, and fragile pride.

She would have killed for him to look her way just days before, but now she saw his true feelings and felt _nothing._

"Get out of my store and don't ever come back here again, you and your money aren't welcome here anymore."

Ranma grew wide-eyed at Ukyo. Did she just ban him… for life? "U-"

"Just go, before I throw you out."

Ranma turned for the door, and stopped at the door with his hands balling tightly into fists. "Fine. Maybe not now, but you'll realize what you could've had, and you'll want to come back, and I might laugh in your face for being wrong when you come begging me to take you back, but I definitely won't turn you down."

He left with that, nearly knocking the door off its hinge with the force he slammed it open with. Ukyo stepped from behind the counter and had a seat at a table, shaking with anger. "If you're both not out of here in the next five seconds…"

Mousse dropped down from the ceiling, bowed politely to Ukyo, and ran for his life out the door. Right behind him, the garbage can by the door got up and walked out of the store without a word.

It was finally falling into place, everything that concerned her, Ranma and her life as it was until now. He looked at her with such intensity, and it did nothing to her. She finally saw him for what he really was and realized just what a fool she had been.

She had been obsessed, that much was obvious. She hadn't seen Ranma or even thought about how she really felt about him. All she ever saw was that six year old boy and the friend she wanted back, the friend she chased for a decade in search of answers, catharsis, or maybe both.

He was still that same child, and after months of dealing with him and one day where it all piled on past the breaking point, she had finally outgrown him.

"The one guy I ever thought I liked…" She muttered under her breath. Pretty much the one guy, no other guy really did it for her, not even the many boys at her previous school turned her interest and that wasn't even considering her single-minded vendetta. Though, was she even attracted to Ranma in that way?

She let out a sigh. "Who knows, maybe I'm gay too. Oh how cruel would that be, Ranma?"

In a way, she envied Shampoo and Akane. Akane was already really comfortable with her sexuality, as if it fit her like a glove, and Shampoo didn't have a care in the world either way. But was it even that easy for her, if she was?

"I'm gay," Ukyo whispered to herself, rolling the words in her mouth. Didn't feel like they were misplaced, as she thought on it more, but at the same time it didn't feel like an earth-shattering revelation. "Yeah, that's right, I'm gay."

She almost laughed to herself, as Ranma had came to try and put the idea of her betraying Akane and Shampoo into her head and wound up driving her farther away.

"We is back." Shampoo said, arriving five minutes later, immediately smelling the okonomiyaki and a certain odor. "Ranma…"

"What about Ranma?" Akane asked, coming to stop beside her roommate.

"He was here." Ukyo nodded towards the counter. "Even paid for his food."

"And Spatula Girl not harm? Shampoo too too impressed at restraint."

"I wanted to, please believe me," Ukyo replied.

Akane frowned. "What did he want?"

"Me, I guess. He started trying to woo me." Ukyo giggled, leaning back and looking at the ceiling. "But when I didn't go for it, well… Ranma's gonna Ranma." Ukyo laughed, putting her head down a bit and sighing again.

"How far did he shove his foot into his mouth?" Akane asked.

Ukyo shook her head. "He failed so badly at it that it helped me realize something else."

Akane's face started to dawn with recognition. "You don't mean…" She started giggling. "Oh that's _too perfect."_

"What perfect?" Shampoo pouted, wondering what they were going on about.

"Ranma sweet-talked me all right," Ukyo said, laughing again. "Right out of the closet."

Shampoo froze for a second before lapsing into a hysterical fit of laughter that sent her falling to the floor.

"Is too, too good!" Shampoo howled, kicking her legs in amusement. "Shampoo almost want track down Ranma and tell."

Akane raised a hand in protest. "Hang on now, I want to see the look on his face, too."

All three shared a laugh at that.

"Well, that's me outed," Ukyo said.

"And I came out a couple days ago," Akane said.

The two turned their heads to the ex-Amazon.

"Thinking it Shampoo who next?" Shampoo laughed haughtily. "Shampoo know exactly what Shampoo is, and that okay."

"You could at least humor us," Ukyo pointed out with mock intensity.

"Yeah," Akane added in similar fashion.

"Is too, too mean! Spatula Girl and Tomboy is bullying poor Shampoo!" the purple haired girl cried with fake duress, drawing laughs from her friends.

"Anyway," Akane said after thinking for a second, "You wanna go get dinner tonight Ukyo? You could use a night off after something like this."

Ukyo smiled. "Why not?" She turned to Shampoo. " You want to handle dinner rush tonight Shampoo?"

"Shampoo do it." The former Amazon said, getting up off the floor. "Go and have fun, fun night together. Just not too too much fun, Akane bed not big enough for three people."

"I do need a bigger bed." Shampoo looked at Akane with a slight frown. "We need a bigger bed."

"I should go check out my wardrobe." Ukyo stood up from the table. "After, all it's a date right?"

"Yes," Akane agreed.

"Well, I can't look like some loser who can't even get off work long enough to change into something suitable." Ukyo turned for the back, intent on going to her apartment. She had to have something nice to wear.

"Is okay?" Shampoo asked, as she noticed Akane blushing a little.

"It seems like a dream," Akane said, smiling wanly. "It's going to be a thing isn't it?"

"Shampoo think you is not speaking seriously enough." Shampoo smiled though, showing she was only teasing. "But is good. Tomboy is going to have too, too good time, Shampoo feel."

"Is this okay though? I mean… you and I sleep together, and we made out…"

"Shampoo no mind if Tomboy go for Spatula Girl." Shampoo leaned in and whispered into Akane's ear. "But you is breaking Shampoo's heart if you is just forget her."

Akane didn't look at Shampoo, didn't say anything. She just swept her into a hug, not even hesitating to initiate close contact.

"Shampoo care much about Tomboy, and Shampoo no want to hate." Shampoo melted into the hug, relishing the closeness. "Shampoo is tired from hating things."

"So am I," Akane whispered, tightening the hug a little.

Shampoo silently gripped onto Akane, even as Ukyo came back from her apartment.

_They really do look good together_. Ukyo thought to herself, not wanting to break the moment. _But there's no point in feeling left out. They're your friends now after all, they'll only abandon you if you abandon them first._

Her resolve tightened, the chef silently walked over and turned it into a group hug.

"Aiya!" Shampoo squealed, now smooshed between Akane and Ukyo. "Is all for Shampoo?"

"In a way," Ukyo said, smiling to herself. "I know it's hard to trust at times, and we've been taking some huge emotional risks so far. But don't worry sugar; I still got time for you if you want it. I'm your friend aren't I?"

"Shampoo say so." Akane gave Shampoo a look. "Tomboy agrees that Spatula Girl is Shampoo friend."

Akane giggled a little.

"Well it looks like it's unanimous," Ukyo said, nodding quickly. "Think we should open back up yet?"

"Another five minutes, I really like this," Akane said.

"Shampoo think that too, too good idea."

And thus the trio settled down into their hug, feelings surging and dancing between them.

* * *

A/N: Remember guys: if you're being hounded by hot yet crazy girls; don't be a dick to them! Treat them all with respect and courtesy and you might unlock the harem ending. Ranma Saotome missed every event flag ever. Even all of the hidden routes! Worst Visual Novel player ever. Wait… what?


	4. As easy as 1 2 3

Disclaimer: All in all it's just another fic on the wall

**ESCAPE FROM RANMA SAOTOME!**

**Presented by the Anonguy Workshop**

**[Step 4: As easy as 1-2-3]**

_A guide for when to make You+Me+She a Reality_

Another day, another wasted effort as far as coming up with a plan to fix things. That was, at least, how Soun and Genma decided to view things when they sobered up after getting wasted when they couldn't find the right and proper love charm. After their first day of browsing such illicit goods, Soun had swiftly learnt not to mention wanting to use it on his daughter.

Genma, meanwhile, learnt not to complain about his son loudly even as they were being chased away by angry shopkeepers. If they were incensed at Soun's seemingly incestuous designs for their goods, they became far madder at learning his friend was apparently just as bad a father. However, what neither of them learned was the art of precise explanation of their goals, aims and why they were searching for the goods that had nothing to do with either of them wanting to make their children fall in love with them.

Pity it would have made things so much easier for them if they could talk to everyone as easy as they did a bartender.

Soun had at least graduated back into the school of alcohol induced brain injuries, and as such was nursing one hell of a hangover. Genma, meanwhile, had not been able to enjoy as much sake as his friend due to his head's repeated meetings with blunt objects. Nevertheless, Soun looked like death warmed over while Genma appeared to be death slightly undercooked–an odd pairing to be sure.

"I tell you old friend," Soun said gravely, "if only we weren't such horrible parents, the schools would already be joined by now."

"Maybe, or if we're being generous, the possibility wouldn't be currently off the table, Tendo," Genma intoned as he sat atop the garbage heap that had served as his bed for the night. While they had grown adept at earning small sums of cash under Happosai, they had not yet learned to control their vices and put the money to more practical use.

"It's that son of yours!" Soun shouted, before his head throbbed and he collapsed back on his own heap in agony. "If he wasn't such a coward…"

"I raised him too well," Genma agreed, noticeably missing the entire volume of irony that came with that statement. "If only I had taught him the discipline necessary to control his manliness… if only!" Genma started crying for no apparent reason whatsoever, which made Soun feel awkward.

"It's okay Saotome, we'll get those two back together, hook or crook." Soun didn't speak aloud his hangover induced insight that neither option would work, not without confronting one of the two first.

"I hope so, it's for the future of our schools!" Genma looked towards the sky.

"Our dream!" Soun cried, looking heavenward as well.

"That's nice you two, but if you don't clear out of here in the next five minutes, I'm coming back with my boys and we'll toss you out." This voice belonged to a short man, whose ratty countenance made one believe in the might of animal husbandry.

"As amusing as that'd be little man," Soun retorted with an amazing amount of haughtiness for a guy with a hangover that would cripple a dinosaur. "We have long since retired from picking on the weak. Come Saotome, the day is still young and we have places to be."

"Right behind you Tendo," Genma said, eyeballing the little rat bastard for a good second before he and his hungover friend wobbled away from the garbage heap with their noses in the air.

"If only that old bat had left something behind." Soun complained, referring to the fact that they had broken into the Cat Cafe the night of Akane dumping Ranma and found that Cologne had been incredibly thorough in packing up and leaving.

"Not that any of them would last for more than a day." Genma grumbled, suddenly finding those mystic Amazon potions to be fair too temporary for his tastes.

"It would have been enough of a start at least", Soun argued as he had since they failed to retrieve anything, "Something to trace back to a stronger brew."

"Like that love pill bracelet." Genma was really pissed now that he had realized that the lifetime pill had been wasted and the one Akane had ingested had already worn off.

"Curse you master!" Soun howled, the beginning of his fabled waterworks starting up. "If only you hadn't wasted the pills!"

Before they could dissolve into further disrespect for their teacher, both of their stomachs decided they would voice the need for them to get food soon.

"Ah," Genma said, looking down. "I'm hungry."

"Same." Soun agreed, looking around to see where they were. "Looks like we'll have to put in some legwork to get our daily meal."

"Won't be the first time." Genma scoffed.

"Won't be the last," Soun reminded him with a sober tone. "We should start looking for some quick work so we can get paid so we can thus buy some food."

"That's right. We can't plan to rescue the future of the schools on an empty stomach."

And with that, the two masters of Indiscriminate Grappling sauntered out into the world, looking for temporary work.

* * *

Kasumi sighed as she finished washing the last of the dishes, another lunch spent alone after her father and Mr. Saotome had embarked on their quest to fix things. Normally, she'd be concerned with them making things worse, but she really hoped they could do something to get things back to how they were. It had only been a couple days, but it felt like an eternity had passed since Akane threw Ranma to the proverbial curb.

But that wasn't really what she concerned herself about, oh not one bit. It had been when Akane had spoken out against both of her older sisters and their supposed meddling in her affairs. A tremor shook through her body and Kasumi clenched her hands into fists as she remembered the hatred and bile her beloved little sister had spewed forth.

That she had been right on the nose with everything she had said only made it worse.

Not pinpoint accuracy mind you, but more throwing a boulder in the general direction of the problem. Kasumi sighed again, wishing she could have had the courage to correct her erstwhile sister. Maybe Akane could have admitted she was wrong about Ranma too, but more importantly, wrong about what she had said.

"I do care," she whispered to herself, and in the stillness of the house, she could almost believe it.

Yet, those words and accusations still stung, the wounds running deep into her proverbial core. The apparent ring of truth to them only caused more of a quandary in the eldest Tendo sister, one she couldn't quash with a flick of the wrist. Had she really been so blind to her sister's suffering, so dismissive of her feelings that she had caused this rift?

"I'm home." Nabiki's voice wafted through the house, interrupting her older sister's downward spiral.

"Welcome home!" Kasumi called, trying to put enough warmth into her words. "I thought you had cram school today."

"I didn't feel like going, plus I'm already far enough ahead that I don't need to go everyday," Nabiki explained, entering the kitchen with a slightly cautious step. "Akane isn't home is she?"

"No, she's out with Shampoo," Kasumi replied, veiling her disapproving tone with one of concern.

"Good, I don't feel like seeing her today," Nabiki said with equal measures of relief and disgust. The less she had to see of her, after the last few days the better. While Akane's words didn't weigh as heavily on the middle sister, her attitude and actions since–with taking back all of the clothes the middle Tendo sister borrowed being the very least of the offenses–left her with an anger as raw as Kasumi's ineffectual self-loathing.

"You shouldn't say that," Kasumi said out of habit mostly, which was why she looked away when Nabiki snapped a glare at her,

"Saying what one is not supposed is all the rage these days," Nabiki spat, setting her satchel on the table. "Has Daddy come back yet?"

"No."

"Even better." Nabiki let out a sigh and decided to raid the fridge for a snack.

"Do… do you think things will ever be the way they were?" Kasumi didn't mean to sound so small, but everything was so foreign to her she just couldn't bear the idea that this was the way things were going to be.

"Akane's done a bang up job of making sure it won't." Nabiki had witnessed Akane's determination yesterday morning, an unpleasant and primal scene to say the least. "Maybe it's for the best it turned out this way."

"How can you say that?" Kasumi snapped, tears beginning to form in her eyes.

"Because Ranma will finally have to man up!" Nabiki shouted, slamming the refrigerator door sans snack. "Nothing was getting solved before but now there's a chance things can finally be settled."

"But what if he can't do it?"

"Who fucking cares?" Nabiki looked at Kasumi as if she grew an extra head. "Either they all kiss and make up or they fucking don't. Sitting there worrying about pointless shit is why Akane chewed you out in the first place."

"But she really did like him!" Kasumi didn't seem to have heard what Nabiki had said. "I couldn't have been wrong; all the same signs were there like with Dr. Tofu!"

"And she sure ended up with him, didn't she Cupid?" Nabiki snarked, deciding if Kasumi wanted to be what she took her rage out on then so be it.

"That…" Kasumi lost her bluster and looked at the floor again.

"Quit being stupid about what Akane said." Nabiki turned away from her sister, reining in the impulse to shout at her further. "Whether she was right or wrong doesn't even matter. This is about respect."

"Are you that scared of her?" Kasumi recalled the rather grim threat Akane had leveled towards Nabiki.

"Not as much as you're scared she's right."

A moment of silence passed and Kasumi knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that was what was eating her up so much.

"But what do we do?" Kasumi asked quietly, wishing for answers to all of this.

"Make her admit she was wrong in how she handled it," Nabiki said, her tone tipping off exactly what she was actually referring to. "I don't care if Ranma comes back, and outside of a pity fuck, neither do you."

Kasumi turned red. "Nabiki! I-I don't like him like that."

"You've thought about it." Nabiki turned and stared Kasumi in the eye.

"That… yes… I have…" In that briefest moment before Ranma last left the house, Kasumi almost crossed the line Akane drew on the sand.

"I did too, for probably all of a half-second." Nabiki's snark-laced admission surprised Kasumi, but such honesty actually helped to mend the pain she felt. Not a worldly lot, but some. "But that's that. We're honestly better off without him and the Panda eating our food, wrecking our house, or generally lowering the property value by just hanging around. Akane just needs to stop acting like this is her party and she can step on whomever she wants"

At that, Kasumi offered a quiet nod assent.

Nabiki blew out another sigh. "Think you could whip me something up right quick? I could use something to eat."

"Heh… okay." Kasumi wiped the remnants of tears from her eyes, relieved to fall back into her usual role.

"I'll be upstairs then." Nabiki turned and exited the kitchen. Once she was out of sight, she collapsed against the wall and took a steadying breath. "That's right, who needs Ranma anyways?"

None of the Tendo sisters did, but driving him away once Akane admitted she really did care about him would be a nice bit of payback for that verbal thrashing.

"Don't blame me Akane… you brought this on yourself."

* * *

"So," Akane began as she looked to her side at Ukyo. "How bad was Ranma?"

"Par of the course for him at the start," Ukyo answered, looking towards the sky as she and Akane walked down the sidewalk towards the heart of Nerima. It was clear and sunny, just how it should be for their date. "But he lost it when I didn't start ripping my clothes off in deference to his eminent sexiness."

"That sounds just like him." Ranma did always take slights to his skills worse than slights to his person. "It doesn't surprise me that he can't handle himself now that we're gone."

"He's so out of it, he was working with Mousse of all people." Ukyo laughed. "Must have been Mousse's idea to try and equate his problem with us and ours with the pursuers we had picked up."

"He said that?" Akane wanted to have expected something so silly from Ranma, but the idea that their situations were like his was preposterous.

"He did, even kept a straight face too." Ukyo had to give that to her ex-fiance, he was able to say some patently stupid shit without losing control of himself.

"Pathetic." Akane couldn't bring herself to say more than that.

"Yeah."

A nice silence lapsed over them as they walked down the street, putting further distance from Ucchan's.

"You have anywhere in mind for this date?" Ukyo asked, after a couple seconds of extended silence. They couldn't exactly dump on Ranma all the time, even if they did want to.

"I had a few things in mind," Akane said with a smile. "Someplace fun first, then some dinner, and then a nice walk through the park after."

"Dinner and dancing, then?"

"Yes but without the dancing…" Akane smiled. "I'm not exactly the best dancer."

Ukyo coughed a little and turned to cover her blush. _Ah, she is so cute when she smiles… _"Well that's okay; I've never danced so I'm probably no good too."

"Well that won't be a problem unless someone challenges you to DDR where we're going, there's an arcade a block or two from here," Akane said cheerfully.

"I didn't take you for a gamer, Akane-chan." Ukyo giggled a little at the mental picture that brought up: Akane wrapped in a blanket, sitting in front of a Playstation, surrounded by snacks, and obsessively smacking around some bad guy as the world went on around her. Actually, that mental image was kind of cute too.

"I'm not; I just like to let off some steam once in awhile."

"Punching machines?"

"Nah, they stopped ordering those after I broke the fifth one. Fighting games help, but I'm more partial to the old school beat-em-up genre."

"A bit of catharsis after school?"

"Oh yes, very much so. It's more fun than breaking bricks, too."

The two trailed off as they stopped outside the Young Kings Arcade, a modest place with a modest selection of games. It wasn't the best arcade by any stretch, but it did its job with a workman-like charm. By Akane's measure, it was a sanctuary where she could escape from the maelstrom of bullshit that was her school life.

"What a nice little place," Ukyo said. It was no hyperbole; the arcade could be charitably called a large hole in the wall.

"It's what kept me sane before Ranma showed up, though it's been awhile since I came here to relax."

"Well, you can show me around and then… show me your moves." Ukyo wrapped a friendly arm behind Akane's shoulder with her Captain Falcon impression.

"Yes!" Akane's mimic of Captain Falcon's voice was slightly better as they stepped into the arcade, finding it sparsely populated by a variety of people.

"Ah, Akane-chan!" came the voice of an old man, the owner of this place as he shuffled to greet his favorite customer. Despite being well into his sixties, maybe even his seventies, he wore a well-worn Street Fighter II t-shirt and a replica of Terry Bogard's hat like any other fighting game otaku. "It's been too long."

"It has and I'm sorry for it." Akane gestured to Ukyo with her head. "This is my friend, Ukyo. I wanted to show her one of my favorite places."

"Welcome indeed, a friend of Akane-chan is a friend of mine," the old man said, bowing his head. "I hope you enjoy your time here."

"Thanks uh…"

"Hashimoto, that is all you need to refer to me as," Hashimoto replied, nodding his head a little. "Now I won't keep you from your games…" He very swiftly shuffled away, humming a happy little tune.

"So…" Ukyo said, looking at Akane who just laughed.

"If we come by a couple more times, you'll get used to him." Akane said, before grabbing Ukyo's arm. "Come on, I want to see if my corner is still here…"

* * *

"Shampoo may have bit of more than can chew," The ex-Amazon whispered to herself as she moved to put the open sign back outside. "But Shampoo is friend, so friend is having to do favors now and then." Plus she had leverage for getting time off for personal issues if it came down to it, so it was a win for her in the long run.

That's what she signed up for when she took this job, and just what she asked for when she became their friend. Shampoo hurried to make sure everything was set for the incoming people, it wouldn't do to hurt business so soon after being entrusted with the place. Soup was simmering, ramen was ready to drop, batter was mixed, and the griddle was running hot.

Now all that was needed was customers…

Luck was on her side, as it was only 2 minutes after reopening that she had gotten her first wave of customers.

"Nihao! Is Shampoo by self today, please understand if slow," Shampoo said to the first couple customers, flashing her winning smile and melting more than a few brains… figuratively speaking of course.

"Ah, that's okay," said the first guy in line, scratching the back of his neck.

"What is you having?"

"Pork ramen please with hot sour soup."

"Shrimp okonomiyaki with extra spring onions!"

"Your phone number!"

The two men turned to their friend.

"Worth a shot. Just give me some pork ramen too, just regular broth please."

"Shampoo happy to serve!" she cried, springing into action with her usual spunk.

And so things settled into a routine, Shampoo getting orders and whipping them up with speed, people paying and enjoying their food. The chatter was brisk but friendly; leaving the distinct impression that Ukyo being gone did not mean losing out on that homely charm they had come to love. But as usual, the good times had to come crashing to a halt just when it was getting to feel like today wasn't going to suck a lot of ass.

"Yes, is having order?" Shampoo asked, feeling a vague sense of familiarity with the two girls staring a hole through her.

In the presence of Shampoo, Yuka tried to keep her cool. "Ah, n-no, not really, ee just wanted to talk to Ukyo."

"Can talk to Shampoo, has ears, can listen very well yes?" Shampoo retorted, eyeing Sayuri when she giggled a little too loud. "Is that problem?"

"Not at all, not at all!" Sayuri squeaked, hiding behind Yuka.

"It's kind of something for Ukyo specifically," Yuka said.

"About job?"

"About Akane."

There was a long, pregnant pause as Shampoo finally put names to the faces.

"Ah, you is Tomboy friends, Stupid Girl 1 and Stupid Girl 2." Shampoo sighed, wondering just how Akane's ex-friends intended to ruin her mood and day.

"Hey we're not stupid!" Sayuri snapped back before shrinking back behind Yuka when Shampoo turned a look upon her.

"Is too, too bad, Spatula Girl is out," Shampoo replied with a shrug of her shoulders.

Yuka began, "Well we'll wait here-"

"Spatula Girl be out all day, maybe all night. Is out with Tomboy on date, yes?"

Sayuri squeaked a little at that, Yuka's jaw fell free.

"She's not seriously…" Yuka trailed off.

"Not seriously what? Tomboy is what Tomboy say, Shampoo was knowing that first hand," Shampoo purred suggestively.

Yuka wasn't sure how to take that last part, so she ignored it. "I thought she was just mad when she said… _that."_

Shampoo set her jaw at that insidious insinuation. "You is thinking lots of things, and none is too, too smart."

"But she's really not!" Sayuri cried, tears beginning to form around the edge of eyes. "Akane and Ranma have fights all the time but-"

"Now they is having fights none of time, is better yes?" Shampoo interrupted.

Sayuri wasn't beating that logic but damn if she didn't give it the college try. "Akane fought with him, yeah, but she never left him before because even though he screwed up a lot of times… s-she knew there was a better person under there! We all know there is, you know there is!"

"Yes, Shampoo know," Shampoo replied.

"Then why-?"

"You is not knowing. Shampoo chase Ranma long time, read him like easy book, yes?" Shampoo sighed a little, absent mindedly cleaning the griddle. "Shampoo see times Ranma is good, good person, even to Shampoo, but Ranma is also bad, bad person. Ranma is thinking Ranma is not responsible for bad, bad things Ranma is always doing."

"You're not really any better!" Sayuri shot back.

Shampoo sniffed. "Shampoo was having good, good reason to chase Ranma forever and marry–Shampoo can no go home ever again if Ranma not marry. Shampoo chase with all Shampoo has because that only way to get home and be with Shampoo village and family. If you was in same bad, bad problem, would Stupid Girls be nice?"

"So why did you just quit, then?"

"Even if Tomboy or Spatula Girl not in way, Ranma no marry Shampoo, Ranma was thinking Shampoo just cute, cute girl who feed and give attentions to Ranma. Now Shampoo wish Ranma was real girl, so Shampoo could kill and go home." And take Akane and Ukyo with her, they'd be perfect for the village and well-received if she had any say.

"But," Sayuri said, looking down anywhere but directly at her, "Didn't you love him?"

"Shampoo love village, and family, and all things Shampoo can no go back to ever," Shampoo replied with a slightly sad tone. "Ranma is big, big obstacle to going back to place where Shampoo is wanted and loved, but even when being too, too nice, Ranma never marry Shampoo."

Sayuri said nothing, simply becoming silent and wishing to disappear into the floor. Finding her sufficiently cowed, the ex-Amazon looked to Yuka as she began preparing ingredients. "Spatula Girl closer with Ranma than Shampoo, but Ranma was never giving love to Spatula Girl either. Tomboy always hated Ranma, but always try, yes? She is too, too nice but explode too, too easy, and Ranma always throw fuel on fire when Tomboy just want love. Ranma no love anyone but Ranma."

In the face of Shampoo's viewpoint, Yuka tried to pull a card from up her sleeve. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe he thinks you all are crazy so he wants to keep away from you emotionally? Maybe if you looked at it from his point of view, you'd figure out how to get him to love you all back."

Shampoo plucked the figurative card from Yuka's hand and crushed it in front of her in all of her haughty, if suppressed, fury. "Ranma no want that, Ranma is just wanting things back to normal, where Ranma is happy."

"Then why don't you all get together and make him happy?! You're all friends now, can't you share him or something?!" Yuka asked in her exasperation. "You'd be able to go back home and Akane and Ukyo would have a guy who loves them, and Ranma would have three girls who all love him!"

Shampoo laughed gaily at that. "No."

"Why not?"

"Tomboy and Spatula Girl is gay."

"And Ranma turns into a girl!"

"Ranma is man even when girl."

"What difference does that make; he still has the parts they'd like!"

Shampoo rolled her eyes at that. "You is really being number 1 stupid girl."

Yuka wanted to scream in frustration, but was interrupted by someone throwing a wadded napkin at her head.

"You quit badgering the chef you stupid cow and get out of here so we can order!" a customer in a line now going out the door yelled. Several other voices joined in shouting angrily at the pair.

Shampoo took a deep breath, releasing her anger "Shampoo is suggesting you leave. As no Shampoo place to say can no ever come back, you may return. But Shampoo is warning, if you is coming back to be stupid, you is being thrown out like trash."

"But-"

"Line is behind you, you is not ordering food so you is leaving."

Yuka turned to Sayuri for support but found her friend had already fled.

"You coward!" Yuka swore as she turned and ran from the restaurant.

"Shampoo is sorry for make scene," Shampoo said, apologizing to the crowd.

"It's okay." This came from the girl who had been standing behind the twosome from before. "Honestly, I'd probably have hit them myself."

"You're okay Shampoo-san," another of the customers called out. "I'm glad you managed to survive the closure of the Cat Cafe!"

"Aiyah, thank you!" Shampoo bowed her head, before raising it again. "No can give free food, but hope to make too, too delicious food for all."

A bit of cheering broke out, showing nigh universal approval of that idea.

* * *

"_KO!"_ came the call from the arcade machine as Akane won her 14th straight round against the other patrons.

"Wow, you haven't lost a beat," the defeated young man said, leaving behind the 4 token bet as was tradition that added to the small mountain next to her the Hashimoto set up.

"When you said you used to play, I didn't think you'd be this good," Ukyo admitted, having watched Akane win seven straight matches without losing a round.

"It's because I'm so 'clumsy' right?" Akane asked.

"… Oh!" Ukyo gasped, as she realized just how much that would hurt Akane's self-image. "Sorry, I just-"

"No, it's okay," Akane said with a smile as she beckoned her next challenger on. "I know you didn't mean it like that. When it comes to girly things, the only thing I'm about good for is my taste in clothes and figure skating, everything else is stuff like this… and beating up people."

Ukyo was part relieved and part surprised. A more hair-trigger Akane would've exploded at that, she has really mellowed out.

"Well if you're okay with things being like that then so am I." Ukyo said, looking at the game. _Capcom vs. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World_ wasn't the most popular game in Japan, but it had its followers due to the wide cast available and quirky humor given to the specials and supers. "I never knew a game like this existed."

"Not many people do, it was something Capcom did on a whim for a quick fistful of cash." Akane said, diverting her focus just a tad as the person who challenged her was less than bad. "There's a push on both sides of the ocean for it to be featured at EVO."

Ukyo had seen the poster near the machine, hoping people could help push this game to EVO. "So what's that?"

"Big fighting game tournament, beyond old cabinets like these and more towards home consoles with controls modeled after the arcade stick." Akane finished the round with a perfect, enjoying the end cutscene. "Hashimoto-san likes the game a lot, so he's always stumping for it."

And that'd explain the poster. "So what about you?"

"It's a fun little mix between the hardcore combo fests where you exploit one or two things for one-combo kills and schlocky casual fighters that rely more on character charm and story," Akane said, shrugging her shoulders as she closed out her 15th victory in a row. "It's a nice game that doesn't take itself too seriously while being challenging enough not to bore me."

"Sounds like fun," Ukyo watched Akane beat the living daylights out of her next opponent. "You'll have to teach me how to play sometime."

"Oh I will, if only so I can lord my superiority over you." Akane's tone took a slightly evil edge.

"You better hope I don't turn out to be some prodigy at games then."

"If you do, then I'll just make you my meal-ticket to EVO." Having boxed her opponent into a corner, Akane proceeded to crush him into the ground with what Ukyo found to be a very creative use of drum sticks and pure unrelenting hatred of everyone (including you).

"Oh man, you are the real deal!" her opponent said in graceful defeat. "You're going to be around more, right?"

Akane smiled. "Sure will."

As the opponent left after handing her his four-token fee, Akane offered them to Ukyo. "Come on, give it a try. We can play tag against the computer so you can give it a try."

Ukyo smiled. "All right, but if I get a higher score than you, don't be mad."

"In the unlikely event it happens, I won't."

And just like that, the good times were interrupted.

"At last, I have found you Akane Tendo!" The bombastic voice of Tatewaki Kuno, age 17, shook the room. "I have searched everywhere for you, fearing you had been banished by the foul Saotome!"

"A new challenger appears eh?" Ukyo joked, watching as the Kendoist strutted towards Akane.

"Not now Kuno," Akane said, with a slight bit of warning. "I'm trying to trip a flag."

Ukyo couldn't help a small blush at that.

"But my love-" Kuno started, only for Ukyo to step forward and grab him by the front of his gi.

"She said not now, buster." Ukyo said before bodily pushing him back.

"And who are you churl?" Kuno demanded.

"Ukyo Kuonji, Akane is with me."

Recognition dawned. "The gourmet who parlays with Saotome," Kuno said.

"I think you mean parley."

Kuno stared. "I am confused, you are a woman?"

Ukyo looked down at her more feminine attire, a short blue dress with her usual black leggings rather than the kimono she normally wore. She looked back up at Kuno. "I'm very much a woman, yes."

"I see! Until this moment I was under the impression you were an effeminate eunuch!"

Ukyo cocked back to punch Kuno, but Akane grabbed her arm and shook her head. "Please don't, I'd rather not have him put through a wall here."

At that, Ukyo relented.

"But as you are but another helpless maiden underneath Saotome's sway, I would not be averse to welcoming you to my arms as well."

Akane had to hold Ukyo back with most of her might. "Down, girl!" She looked to her accoster. "Kuno, go away."

"Please, allow me to make my case! I feel that you must hear what I have to say, it may very well spare you the shame and humiliation of your curse!"

Akane held firm against Ukyo, but gave Kuno a blank look. "My curse?"

"Yes, the unspeakable curse cast upon you by Saotome for daring to defy him."

"The curse of happiness?" Akane asked.

Ukyo calmed down. "Oh no, however will you be able to live with it?"

"I meant your unnatural hatred for men."

Akane let Ukyo go, but sadly her rage had been completely averted. "I'm pretty sure that's your fault."

"Yes, I was not there to protect you from his wrath, but that is different! Come, Akane, fall into my embrace so I may acquaint you with the firm, loving touch of a man!"

Akane rolled her eyes. "Kuno, I'm a les-"

"Don't say such lies; I know that is not you speaking!" Kuno interjected. "Akane, you are a fair maiden of unspoiled purity and grace. Such a warm, tender soul as yours can only be intertwined with the passionate, virile soul of a man!"

Ukyo was less angry and more completely exasperated, almost on the verge of actually laughing. Akane too was remaining cool towards Kuno. "But I don't want to be intertwined with a man, especially you."

Kuno pulled a grimace. "Clearly it is because you have not seen the true beauty of masculinity."

"I don't know, most of the men I know pride themselves of being paragons of men, you included," Akane pointed out.

At that, Kuno let out a wry chuckle, and a gleam appeared in his eyes. "Oh my beloved… only out of concern for your chastity, have I restrained my awe-inspiring virility. Now, under these extraordinary circumstances, I must unleash the full weight of my manliness!"

Before Akane or Ukyo could say another word, Kuno grabbed his clothes and literally flung them off, leaving his impressively built body clad only in a fundoshi. As both girls stared, wide-eyed, Kuno immediately flexed his muscles in a bodybuilder's pose.

"Akane, Kuonji look at this body! This magnificent body! This beautiful, perfect body! I work out!" He moved into another pose. "This sculpted, hard physique, begging for your soft touch!"

Ukyo looked to the side with a hand over her mouth. Akane couldn't tell if she was laughing, dry-heaving, or both.

"This is what a real man is, Akane! This is what a woman must lust for upon sight, even if she dallies with softer flesh! Man and Woman, connected in mind, body, and soul! These are the rules of nature!"

Kuno closed his eyes and held up a microphone. "So come, away with me, and I will show you a world of unyielding pleasure that only a man can deliver a woman! You may bring along Kuonji as I have more than enough virility to spare for her, and the Pigtailed Girl as well!"

He opened his eyes as he performed a pelvic thrust in Akane's direction, only to find not Akane but Hashimoto, a couple of police officers, and every other patron of the arcade glaring at him. Akane and Ukyo were most certainly not among them. "Ah? Where did-?"

"Get that pervert out of my arcade!" Hashimoto demanded.

The two officers were the first to set upon Kuno with tasers and nightsticks, followed by the arcade patrons furious that this pervert had driven out the two cute girls that had come to visit.

Ukyo was still trying to catch her breath from laughing far too hard at what she and Akane had been subjected to as the two of them walked away from the arcade.

"He… he actually had 'Manly Man' tattooed across his chest!" Ukyo held onto Akane as she tried to remain standing.

"I think that was permanent marker," Akane pointed out.

Ukyo stopped for a moment, and then laughed _even harder._

Akane pouted. "I'm glad you thought it was funny, he completely ruined the arcade part of the date."

"Yeah, if it wasn't a place you liked so much though we could've gotten rid of him quick."

"Even if we weren't there…"

Ukyo raised an eyebrow. "Akane?"

"… Hitting them has never worked as well as just walking away from it does. When Ranma burst in on me and Shampoo and freaked out, I could've hit him, but that's normal to him, and Kuno, and all of these dumb boys."

"It can't be this easy though, can it?"

Akane shrugged her shoulders. "I guess I'm being optimistic, or living with Shampoo has made me pretty confident." A blush of embarrassment colored Akane's face. "Ah… I didn't mean to say it like that…"

Ukyo's eyebrows rose in amazement, before she smirked teasingly. "If that's what works for you Sugar… but you really shouldn't talk about other girls while on a date with one." When Akane suddenly slid her arm around her waist and pulled her close, Ukyo's gaze met Akane's for a brief second before the flush of emotions that came over her turned her away. _Ah…_

With a smile Akane pressed herself more intimately against Ukyo, and brought her lips close enough to the okonomiyaki chef's ear to just barely brush against it as she whispered huskily, "I'm sorry, I won't think of anyone else but Ukyo-chan from now on."

Ukyo's face turned completely red as a spike of warmth seemed to transfer from Akane straight into her heart.

"So!" Akane said, pulling back with a hum. "I know a nice little place not too far from here. Daddy used to treat my sisters and me to it a few times."

"I-I see," Ukyo said, taking a few breaths to get herself under control again. "So what does it serve?"

"A few different things, it starts at curry and branches out into all things fried." Akane gave a little shrug. "It's a very different place, but the food is exceptional."

"Sounds like fun," Ukyo said, stretching a little. "I haven't had a real chance to actually try Tokyo food before now."

"This will be a good first time then." Akane said, looking at their surroundings. "Come on, it's over this way." She took hold of Ukyo's hand and took a sharp left at the next corner. Ukyo allowed herself to be led, damning herself and the bright blush that refused to leave her face.

* * *

_The Fat Pig_ was not what you would call a classy joint, in fact, it looked downright shitty from outside. But that was part of its unique charm, an oddball place where you could find kids eating sundaes next to hard boiled men downing shots of sake after a long day at work. It with a foreboding sense of mockery, as if the place just hated everyone who lived.

Ukyo stared at the profanity laden specials on the signboard outside, as well as the broken neon pig sign. She turned a questioning glance to Akane who shrugged a little sheepishly.

"It's got really good food," Akane said, before laying an arm over Ukyo's shoulders. "Trust me, okay?"

"I believe you! I just didn't think you'd like a place so… bad looking." Ukyo had thought Akane had a thing for cute things but this place was uglier than Kuno in a fundoshi.

"The food is really good," Akane explained, pointing towards the semi-packed house. "But the hospitality is as bad as their food is good, so don't be offended okay?"

"You're asking me to not be offended, with your temper?"

"This place is nothing like dealing with Ranma," Akane replied defensively as they walked in, where upon the short, greasy-looking owner made his usual greetings.

"Well, well, what have we here after so long? If it isn't the strong-armed Tendo bitch," he said to Akane, before turning and bowing his head to Ukyo. "And who's your boyfriend this time?!"

Ukyo kind of gaped at the rudely smiling man, just before Akane shot back, "Why haven't you died yet, you drunken pig fucker?"

Ukyo was stunned. "The food must be _really_ _good."_

"The staff treats everyone like this, and they expect it in turn," Akane explained as she led her date over to an empty table. "If you're nice to them, they'll just think you're trying to be better than them so your food will be cold and you'll have to guess how many of them didn't spit in it."

"Coming here the first time must've been something then, huh?" Ukyo teased.

"I got mad and punched the owner. He just laughed it off and gave me a sundae afterward."

Ukyo got it. "Oh, so they're mean to everybody but in their own weird way they're actually nice about it if you hit back at them. So it's nothing like Ranma at all."

"Exactly, they treat you like garbage while you feast like a king. That's part of the charm, like the cute girls at other restaurants I go to." She gave Ukyo a wry look at that.

Ukyo's face warmed again. "You know, you're really good at this."

"At what?" Akane asked innocently.

Ukyo's next laugh was less stifled. "You know exactly what." She looked at the menu and stifled a laugh at a very lewd joke right in the middle. "So how's the food?"

"They placed on the Zagat survey each of the last four years with high marks for a 'unique experience you have to try once before you die'."

Ukyo looked down into the menu again and tried to make sense of that high praise with dishes that seemed more interested in making fun of the eater or trying to get them to say something rude out loud. "Really?"

"It's better than Kasumi's." She gave Ukyo that warm, slightly lustful look again that got the chef's heart racing. "Though it's not as good as yours."

"Ah, you're incorrigible Sugar." Ukyo had just stopped blushing and now she was redder than a sailor after happy hour.

"I know." Akane smiled wanly, having already picked her order before they even got here.

Ukyo looked back down at the joke and profanity-laden menu. "So what do you recommend for a newbie?"

"Pick your favorite meat and get dishes that feature it." Akane knew what she was going to order before they walked in, and hadn't even bothered with her menu.

"Beef is always good," Ukyo said with a curt nod, looking over the myriad selections for all things cow. "I think I got something."

"Oh, which one?" Akane asked before Ukyo grew wide-eyed at what she was reading.

"Hayashi rice with an extra helping of jizz," Ukyo said flatly.

"That means it comes spicy," Akane explained. "Cock sauce? Sriracha? The stuff with the male chicken on the bottle?"

"You and I both know Ranma's never been on a bottle of anything." Ukyo smirked.

Akane let out a light laugh. "That was terrible."

"Man, that's so crude, but so clever."

"This is a fun place to eat at," Akane said before holding up her hand. "If you don't want to say it out loud, just order it the normal way."

"Nah, I want to get the whole experience, what's the point of dining at a place like this if you don't?" Ukyo asked. It was obvious that this place was important to Akane, just like the arcade was, so she was going to make the most of it.

"Are you sluts going to just sit there all day fingering each other or are you going to order?" Both girls looked over to find their server, a young woman rudely chewing a piece of gum for maximum "I don't give a shit about you" effect. Very nice.

Akane snorted. "Watch your mouth with me, wage slave. Beef curry with an order of tonkatsu."

"Just for that I'm going to tell the cook to jerk off all over it," the server asked.

Akane shrugged. "I don't care, I'm hungry."

The server wrote down the order and looked to Ukyo. "What about you, Osaka?"

"Hayashi rice, and watch your mouth around me, you piece of shit." Ukyo nailed it on the first try, given the smile from the server.

"Huh, this bitch has an attitude." She looked to Akane. "Keep her on a leash before I spank her."

"You wish you could," Akane retorted. "We both want green tea to go with it, be sure to write it down slowly so you don't screw up, bimbo."

"Whatever, cunt." The server wrote down the order and made a rude gesture as she walked away.

Ukyo was already in love with this place. "That was fun! Why didn't you tell me you went to a place like this?"

"Because we haven't been to a place like this since Ranma showed up. Can you imagine me bringing Ranma here, when you know how he gets about people insulting him?" Akane asked.

Ukyo cringed at that. "Yeah… he'd try to get them to show him some respect…"

Akane nodded. "And it would cause a huge fight…"

"And the restaurant would be destroyed." Ukyo hummed. "There must be a lot of places you couldn't take Ranma after you met him."

"You have no idea…" Akane said before she noticed movement towards her out the corner of her eye. Dread immediately painted her features, and before Ukyo could ask what it was…

"AKANE-KUN!" Genma bellowed in greeting, being followed closely by the still hungover, though less hilariously so, Soun. "Why haven't you-?"

Akane promptly jumped up and punched Genma in the face, stopping him dead in his tracks. Everyone in the restaurant stopped what they were doing and stared at the sudden and (not at all) surprising act of violence.

"Akane-chan?" Ukyo asked as Akane drew her fist back and sat down.

"What was that for?!" Genma bellowed at her much like he did Ranma.

"Because I want you to leave me alone." While Akane had seen the futility in beating up on Ranma and Kuno, frankly she hadn't beaten up on Genma enough, and knowing what they were probably here for, she was going to be laying hands on her father before dinner was even served, to boot.

Genma loomed over her. "If you're so eager to hit people, then you need to get back together with Ranma!"

Akane punched him in the face again. "No!"

The staff and guests of the Fat Pig didn't expect such high quality entertainment like a domestic dispute to take place right at the height of the dinner rush, and sat back to watch in amusement.

As Genma rolled around on the floor, clutching his face, Soun stepped up. "Akane, be reasonable! Think about what's at stake here: Our schools, our family's honor!"

Akane pantomimed contemplation with a loud, exaggerated hum, and then looked her Father in the eyes with a glare slightly cooler than lava. "No."

Soun immediately went into his demonic persona, attempting to intimidate Akane much in the same way he would Ranma. "AKANE! YOU WILL OBEY YOUR FATHER OR-"

Ukyo hit him over his demonic head with a chair, and their impromptu audience broke into applause. "You're lucky I didn't bring my spatula with me, bastard!"

Akane clapped her hands together and gasped in joy. "Ucchan!"

Sitting back down, Ukyo huffed and rested an elbow on the table. "Can you believe the nerve? We haven't even gotten our food yet…"

Rubbing his head, Soun sat up and looked to Genma. "Saotome, she's as stubborn as ever…"

Genma narrowed his eyes as he clutched his nose. "No, let's not resort to _that_ just yet…"

"_That?"_ Ukyo asked.

Akane grimaced. It looked like these two knuckleheads had an idea.

Genma stood up, not ready to resort to whatever _that_ was. Snorting through his nose to make sure it and much of his face wasn't shattered; he immediately put on a no-nonsense air. "Akane! You are a martial artist, and a student of the School of Indiscriminate Grappling! It is your duty, no, it is your privilege to represent your school and ensure its future! Without you, your Father's school has no legacy, it will cease to be! It will be no more! The horrible fate of extinction rests entirely upon you for your apathy-"

"Antipathy," Akane corrected as she got up from her chair.

"Antipathy, yes thank you," Genma replied before continuing, "Therefore you must–wait, what do you mean by 'antipathy'?"

Akane kicked Genma in the groin with such force that every male within five hundred meters regardless of species had sympathetic pains in their reproductive organs.

"YOU THINK I GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE SCHOOL ANYMORE?!" Akane roared at the two men, displaying her own demonic attributes.

Genma was actually vomiting from the pain, while Soun was frozen in abject horror. The rest of the restaurant was laughing hysterically, even the male guests shaking off the phantom pain.

"Saotome, she's not going to listen to reason," Soun whispered to his rival-turned-comrade-turned-whimpering idiot, not being able to take being subjected to his own intimidation technique.

Coughing, Genma nodded slowly. "Y-yes… we have no choice… we will have to use… _that technique…"_

Akane narrowed her eyes as both men sat up and got to their knees. Mustering his courage, Soun gave Akane a piercing glare. "Akane, you have given us no choice!"

"Yes, for your insolence and dishonor towards the Art, we have been reduced to this! Prepare yourself!" Genma added in a voice several pitches higher than normal.

Akane indeed prepared herself, adopting a defensive stance.

"This is… the Saotome Desperation Technique… the Crouch of the Wild Tiger!" both men declared, evoking the image of a tiger prepared to lunge for the kill.

Ukyo completely lost it, laughing harder than most of the restaurant. Before Akane could even ask why, both her father and Genma threw themselves to her feet, sobbing loudly.

"Please! We're begging you, get back together with Ranma!" Soun begged.

Howling in shame, Genma was every bit as pathetic. "We'll do anything, give you anything, just please do this for us!"

Akane's expression transformed from hellishly enraged to completely blank in a single frame. "You'll give me _anything?"_

Soun reached into his clothes and pulled out even the deed to the Tendo Home and the land it sat on. "I'll give ownership of the house and dojo to you, right now!"

"We'll work as many jobs as we can, to keep you financially secure for the rest of your lives! You'd never have to work a day!" Genma offered.

"We'll even get rid of Master for you; we'll ship him to Las Vegas, or Amsterdam, or Serbia! You'll never see him again!"

"S-Serbia?" Akane asked in bewilderment.

Ukyo was worried she might die laughing at this point.

So was everyone else in the restaurant.

"Name your price, and it's yours! Please Akane, what would we have to give you to get you back together with him?!" Soun asked.

Well this was an unexpected turn. Up until now, everyone had been trying to either guilt or browbeat her into getting back together with Ranma, but now she was actually being offered something for her suffering. It wasn't some small thing either, these idiots were ready to start up a space program to get her the Sun, Moon, and stars if she so desired it.

Akane mulled it over for all of three seconds. "There's nothing you could give me."

Genma got up. "Is that a challenge?! Because I will go out there right now and-"

"No, there is really nothing in all of creation that's worth getting back together with Ranma," Akane clarified.

"But Akane! We're willing to go out there and kill for you!" Soun declared. "We'll kill ourselves for you-!"

"Eventually," Genma quickly added.

Akane rolled her eyes. "God Himself could offer to bring Mom back from the dead, alive and well on this very spot at this exact moment, and I'd still say no."

Soun kind of balked at that. That… was a lot heavier than he expected. "… Akane…"

"Now you're just being melodramatic! There's no way you can hate my fool of a boy that much!" Genma yelled.

"It'd be like marrying Happosai." Akane wasn't about to say she'd rather marry the toad, who knew if he was waiting to spring out of nowhere with flowers, an officiant, and witnesses.

Genma gaped in horror and looked around for the old pervert. Seeing no sign, he finally got up and stared pointedly at Akane. "I dare you to look me in the eyes, and tell me that you feel nothing for my son."

Akane huffed and got up directly in Genma's face. "I hate-"

Genma immediately engulfed Akane in a burlap sack and hoisted her over his shoulder. "Quick, Tendo! Let's find the boy and get them to a judge!"

Soun jumped to his feet. "Saotome, if anything you're a genius on your feet!"

They took two steps for the door when they felt a killing intent that turned their legs to lead and threatened to void their bowels. Stopping in their tracks, they slowly turned back to see Ukyo standing up slowly from her chair, smiling serenely at them.

"Put Akane-chan down, or I will put you down," she calmly promised.

Genma and Soun looked to one another, and then back to Ukyo, before the former said, "You can take her."

Soun whipped his eyes back to Genma. "Wait, what?!"

Genma was already running for the door.

It turned out Soun couldn't, as Ukyo hit Genma over the head with Soun before he could even make it over the threshold. When both men and the burlap sack hit the ground, Genma looked over to the already thoroughly pummeled Soun. "Come on! You're not that out of practice are you, Tendo?!"

Before Soun could answer, both looked to see Akane emerge from the sack, wreathed completely in an aura of anger that left her completely cast in shadow except for wide, red-glowing eyes.

"You…" Akane growled as she raised a tightly clenched fist. "… Idiots…!"

Thirty seconds worth of excessive physical violence later, both Soun and Genma were rocketing into the sky in the direction of Mount Fuji. As a pair of sonic booms echoed over Nerima, Akane lowered her foot and huffed. "I can't believe they seriously…"

She turned to go back inside the restaurant, and found a standing ovation waiting for her from staff and patrons alike. "Eh?"

"Man they said this place was full of assholes, but I had no idea it was this funny!" a guest within earshot to Akane said to another over the applause.

"Dinner and a show, man! You can't pay enough for this kind of entertainment!" the other replied.

The owner himself walked over to Akane. "You're as violent as ever, you little sociopath! Dinner's on the house for you two!"

Akane blinked. "What, really?"

"Yeah, thanks to you, I don't have to pay their asses so I can take the hit!" The owner patted Akane on the shoulder and walked off, laughing at the top of his lungs.

Well, that worked out better than she expected. "Huh."

Ukyo took Akane by the arm. "Our food showed up while you were making your old man punch Ranma's, come on let's sit down and eat."

Akane smiled and sidled close to Ukyo as they walked back to their table. "Thank you, Ucchan."

"What kind of date would I be if I let the girl I'm with get carried off?"

"A date not getting laid," Akane purred back.

And there went Ukyo's composure, replaced by a bright red blush and steam rising from the top of her head. "A-Akane-chan…!"

"Of course, that'd depend on you." Akane smiled, leaning towards Ukyo and getting oh so close. "However fast or slow you wanted to take it."

"Ah… I…" Ukyo's tongue twirled over on itself as she shrunk back looking like she had been burnt by the sun.

"Anyway," Akane said, sitting back in satisfaction that Ukyo had been shown her gratitude properly. "I'm glad I could take you somewhere I like, even with the interruptions."

"I'm actually surprised it went so well," Ukyo said, returning to normal as she picked up her chopsticks and breathed in the delicious aroma from her beef bowl. "Usually we all don't get to have much fun when we go out on adventures like this."

Akane smiled back with that before taking a bite of her tonkatsu. "No, and from now on that's all we're going to do, just enjoying ourselves and each other."

Ukyo paused, chopsticks ready to grab a clump of rice and beef, and smiled. "You know, when you're in a good mood like this, it's easy to see why you have so many suitors."

Akane turned her head down and said, almost too quietly. "… Well, unlike those idiots I want you to see this side of me, so that's good."

Ukyo nodded in understanding. Beneath the rage and fury of a tempest, Akane wanted to be loved and appreciated in real, meaningful ways, and Ukyo was thrilled that Akane was opening herself up to her like this. "But you know, you're makin' things pretty uneven between us. Maybe I'll have to take you back home to Osaka, and show you 'round for real."

"That'd be wonderful." Akane raised her head, a wan smile on her face.

"Shoot, prolly bring Shampoo too."

"That would be fun. We'll definitely make a day of it sometime." Akane sipped her tea. "But let's worry about this date right now, our food's getting cold!"

* * *

"It exhausting, but fun," Shampoo said as she put out the closed sign for the shop. The dinner crowd had finally left and Shampoo was looking forward to taking a little bit of time off to rest and count up the money for Ukyo. "Shampoo will do this more often, enjoy challenge very much."

"And what challenge… is that?" A ghostly voice asked from the side, causing the ex-Amazon to look and see Ryoga standing a few feet away.

"Oh it Lost Boy," Shampoo said with a dismissive sniff. "If want food, is closed. If want Tomboy, she no here."

"No… I was just passing by." Ryoga was being perfectly honest for once. Had he not seen Shampoo, he wouldn't have even stopped.

"If you is saying so," the ex-Amazon replied, shrugging her shoulders a slight bit. "What is you wanting then?"

Ryoga breathed in a deep breath as he tried to finally stop feeling so down. "I just to talk… Is Akane… ok?"

"Tomboy fine, has Spatula Girl and Shampoo to support her," Shampoo said, a wisp of a smirk crossing her face. "Lost Boy should do self favor and just stop feel sorry for self. You is too, too unlucky when it come to Tomboy, but luckier than Ranma, heh heh heh."

"What do you mean?" Actual life flickered in Ryoga's voice.

"Tomboy only mad at Lost Boy, but forgive if you is apologize for upsetting her. But Ranma? Tomboy **hate** Ranma to core."

"But he turns into a girl…" Ryoga trailed off on purpose, an unpleasant image of Ranma using his girl form to get close to Akane again.

"Girl Ranma still Ranma, Tomboy hate no matter what between Ranma legs." Shampoo was enjoying Ryoga's sudden enthusiasm.

"I might not have a shot, but neither does Ranma." That made him happy, just a little. Ranma would taste the same bitter potion the Lost Boy had to swallow.

"Can be friend, unlike Ranma," Shampoo added.

Ryoga looked to the sky, a picture of him slightly closer to Akane than Ranma was.

"Is you going say something?" Shampo asked after he trailed off and started to twitch.

"Sorry, I just realized that I only have to be slightly less depressed than before." Ryoga smiled a little and shook his head. If Ranma was really out of the picture, then… "No, I can't think like that. If Akane dislikes me now, it's because I placed expectations on her like everyone else. I can't… no, I _won't_ do that again."

"Hmph, look at you, acting cool. You want come inside? But be warned, no Shampoo place, so Lost Boy is paying if want food."

"I think I have some money in my pack." Ryoga shook his pack and nodded. "Yep, got a little left over."

"Shampoo hope no want pork." The ex-Amazon said with a cat-like smirk on her face.

"But I do- oh. You know about that." Ryoga was embarrassed remembering how Shampoo discovered it, and shame as he was reminded of the big thing he had to tell her.

"Was talking about being out, but yes. Shampoo know Lost Boy's naughty secret." Shampoo laughed a little at his stunned expression.

"How do I tell her?" Ryoga asked in a bare whisper. "At least in a way so she won't hate me forever."

"Is simple, say Ranma fault." Ryoga gave her a dubious look that barely covered his shock.

"I blame him for a lot of things."

"Ranma is blame for lot of things."

A moment of silence passed as Ryoga wondered if there was some trick at foot.

"Would it work?" Simplest issue for this, yes? Ryoga didn't think it would at any rate.

"Is have take responsibility for not telling sooner, but Tomboy understand if blame Ranma in right way." Shampoo said, nodding her head.

"And what way is that?"

"Say you follow Ranma to China because mad at him for being idiot, get knocked in pig spring by Ranma." The former Amazon figured he was just a little too thick for conscious deception but this was ridiculous.

"That was an accident."

"Tomboy no need know that."

"So I just lie to her again?"

"Who is you want her mad at, Ranma or you?"

"Well Ranma, but I don't want to... that is..."

Ryoga turned red with embarrassment and chuckled as he tried to regain his bearing.

"Yes yes, you is still wanting to fuck Tomboy all night long and far into following morning. Very nice." Shampoo made a dismissive hand gesture with a flat eyed stare.

"I know, that path is closed to me." Ryoga blew out a sigh and tried to send that perverse image with it. "But can I really be her friend if I lie to her?"

"Is not lying, is not giving answers for questions not asked. Not lie if not asked to tell."

"Does that work?"

"Sure does, Shampoo father never tell mother her ass look fat in those shorts she wear during summer. If Tomboy no ask, you no tell."

Ryoga thought about it and nodded.

"You got any beef ready? I'm not in the mood for shrimp." Ryoga decided that it was better to continue this indoors.

"Might so, if you no mind waiting, can make fresh." Shampoo smiled and finally led the Lost Boy inside.

* * *

"I think we went a little overboard." Ukyo patted her stomach as they reached her restaurant close to eleven. She kept her eyes forward lest she be driven to distraction by the way Akane seemed to glow under the streetlight.

"Maybe, but we had to make up for the part that Kuno ruined," Akane said, looking at Ukyo out of the corner of her eye. It hadn't been the greatest first date, but it was pretty good in her book.

"I'll have to apologize to Shampoo for making her mind the place for a bit longer." Ukyo said, pulling out her key to the place. "Wanna come in for a bit?"

"Sure, plus I'm certain Shampoo will want to regale us with tales of today." Akane added as Ukyo unlocked and pulled open the door.

"-and so he comes at me with a spoon, like not even one of those big wooden ones you use to stir stews with just something you eat shaved ice with, and I'm _dying _laughing and… I don't know maybe you had to be there." Ryoga said, finishing some story to Shampoo.

"Idiot," Shampoo said, apparently not caring too much for the person who attacked Ryoga with a spoon.

"Ah, it must be super late," Ryoga said, finally taking note of how much time had gone by. They had been chatting so much he forgot entirely. "I better get going; maybe I'll find Ranma and beat him up a bit."

"Give him one for Shampoo," the ex-Amazon said, waving to him as he turned to the door.

"For Ukyo and-" he trailed off as he nearly walked into Akane. "-Akane-san too."

"What about me?" Akane asked, an edge to her tone.

"Oh, just talking about going and fighting Ranma again." He miraculously didn't avert his gaze from her. Now that he was certain he had no shot with her, it was a lot easy to actually look her in the face.

"Why?"

"I hate him, but you know… I always have." He laughed a little and closed his eyes, a smile crossing his face. "I'm sorry about before, but I don't expect forgiveness."

"Ryoga…" Akane said, an image of him sobbing full on flashing her mind. "… I don't think it has to go that far."

"If you're not going to be a jerk, then Akane's cool with you," Ukyo spoke up, having felt the amount of self-depreciation in his voice.

"Yeah, Tomboy hate jerks and you is trying," Shampoo added in.

"Then maybe I should focus on learning not to be one." Ryoga walked past Akane without looking at her again. "'Til next time then!"

He wove around Ukyo and disappeared out into the night.

"What a sad guy," Akane said, shaking her head.

"He was smiling though," Ukyo said.

"Really? To me, all I could see was him sobbing his heart out." Akane turned to Shampoo. "Sorry we're late."

"As long as not ditch Shampoo for love hotel," Shampoo replied, smirking a little. "Then it fine."

"Shoot, I knew we forgot something," Akane said, to which Ukyo turned red at the thought.

"Aiyah, Tomboy make Spatula Girl blush!" Shampoo laughed a little as the mood lightened considerably.

"She's been doing it all night!" Ukyo mock complained.

The ex-Amazon grew catty. "Oh? Tomboy is being Playboy?"

Akane crossed the room and rested her arms on the counter in front of Shampoo before giving her a smoky look. "No one's complained so far."

Shampoo smirked. "You is going to try to make Shampoo blush with pretty words too?"

"I don't have to, after what I made you do this morning…" Akane teased back. "… And the night before… and the morning before then…"

A warm flush spread across Shampoo's face as she recalled exactly what Akane had done.

Ukyo whistled as she came over to stand next to Akane. "She's practically glowing in the dark!"

Shampoo shifted where she stood as she subtly ground her thighs together. "Mm… you is being a big Playboy."

Ukyo watched in amazement as Shampoo went from teasing to all but basting in her own juices, and looked to Akane. "Hey, you said you were going to think of no one but me, didn't you?"

Akane answered by hugging Ukyo to her side, and giving her a deep kiss the Okonomiyaki Chef wasn't at all prepared for. Startled at first, a low aroused hum soon left Ukyo's throat as her tongue met Akane's for several moments. When Akane slowly broke the kiss, Ukyo leaned after her to try to continue it, but relented to catch her soft panting.

She brought the hand holding Ukyo's waist up to rest on her cheek. "I'm sorry, Ucchan, think I need more practice at this." She kissed her deeply once more, and this time Ukyo enthusiastically returned it.

"All… is forgiven…" the chef murmured between wet smacks of their lips meeting.

Shampoo looked between the two girls making out in front of her, and marveled at how surreal it was. She had given her approval for Akane to pursue Ukyo, but she hadn't expected the girl to be so aggressive, nor so sure of herself as she did it. Nor did she expect it to be so thrilling to actually behold.

"Aiyah…" Shampoo meant to sound pouty, but it inadvertently came out as almost needy. "No kiss for Shampoo, Playboy?"

Breaking the kiss with Ukyo again, Akane grabbed the front of Shampoo's apron and gently pulled her over the counter and into an equally passionate kiss, leaving the other girl to once again try to catch her breath. Watching Akane and Shampoo lock lips with such intensity, however, Ukyo wondered if she'd ever be able to.

After what seemed like forever, Akane disengaged from Shampoo and wiped the bit of drool that was left round her lips after. She then broke into a throaty giggle as she leaned against the counter and looked between the two ex-fiancées of her ex-fiancé. "Wow… please forgive me for sounding familiar, but I want you both."

Shampoo crawled onto the counter and embraced Akane from behind, hugging her tightly. "It not sound so bad coming from Playboy," she murmured into Akane's neck as she nuzzled her.

Ukyo smiled and hugged Akane as well to give her another brief kiss. "Akane," she said after, "If there was anyone who deserved to have it all, I think it's you."

"Shampoo can agree to that," The former Amazon purred before she kissed Akane's neck.

"It doesn't have to be just me, you know," Akane said, looking from one to the other. "We're all in this together… so why not be together?"

Ukyo hummed. "You mean like a threesome?"

Shampoo all but purred now. "Shampoo is liking this too, too much."

"So I'm going to make it very clear," Akane said before she hugged Ukyo close with one arm, while her other hand cupped Shampoo's cheek. "I want to be your girlfriend, and I want you both to be mine."

Ukyo looked towards Akane's earnest face for a brief second before she smiled and blew out a sigh. "You didn't have to say it, you know, you had me when you took me to that amazing restaurant, Akane-chan."

Akane giggled again. "I thought I had you at that kiss."

"That just sealed the deal."

Shampoo smiled wickedly. "Akane was Shampoo new Airen yesterday morning."

Akane looked at Ukyo, then back at Shampoo before smirking. "What about Ucchan?"

"Yes, what about Ucchan?" Ukyo asked with a pout.

Shampoo slid off the countertop and pulled Ukyo away from Akane in order to give the chef a kiss that would've curled her toes had she not been standing on them. Ending it quickly, she kissed the gasping girl's neck before resting her chin on her shoulder to give Akane a smug look. "Spatula Girl is Shampoo's Airen too."

Ukyo chuckled, and then let out a squeak when Shampoo groped her backside through her skirt. "Hee… an exotic foreign girlfriend, I've really made it big in the business now!"

"So, we're all good?" Akane asked.

"Very," Ukyo agreed.

"Shampoo feel too, too tired all of sudden." Shampoo said, faking a yawn.

"Then how about we all get some sleep? I happen to have a bed big enough for all of us," Ukyo suggested, pointing to the ceiling for effect.

Akane smiled. "If it's big enough for three, I don't think we'll be getting much sleep."

"That not problem for Shampoo," the ex-Amazon declared as she headed off towards the door to Ukyo's place, while untying her apron.

Ukyo and Akane looked at each other and then followed Shampoo at a sedate pace. It was going to be a good night, they all felt.

* * *

A/N: The game is a foot! Enemies lay themselves in front of our heroines, as allies appear to back them up. But what about that rapscallion Ranma Saotome? Well, there's always next time!


	5. So your unwanted harem dumped you

Disclaimer: Before long, life has become comfortably numb

**ESCAPE FROM RANMA SAOTOME!  
Presented by the Anonguy Workshop  
**

**[Step 5: So Your Unwanted Harem Dumped You]**

_A Guide for the Suddenly Single Harem Guy_

Outside of Ucchan's, Ranma kicked over a trashcan and then proceeded to stew. He had just been dumped by Ukyo, and was now all but persona non grata at the restaurant. Behind him Mousse was stuck over the plan and wondering where it failed.

"Che, you stupid duck!" Ranma snapped, grabbing up the Amazon by the front of his robes. "You said there was no way this would fail!"

"I miscalculated, I underestimated just how far you've fallen in her eyes." Mousse said calmly. "It should have worked but it seems there was unseen barrier that prevented the attack from landing."

"Ukyo-chan doesn't like pretty boys." A garbage can to their side said.

"You, I know you..." Ranma said, pointing at the garbage can. "You're... Tsubasa!"

The cross dresser poked his head out with a smirk on his face. "You were doing okay but you went the wrong direction. Ukyo-chan doesn't like you for your looks, it's about your determination and guts."

"If you were listening," Mousse said, pulling free from Ranma. "She doesn't like him much anymore."

"That's because you're being a clown." Tsubasa rested his hands on his chin. "When have you actually tried to get Ukyo to pay attention to you?"

"Never, she... always does it on her own." And like that, Ranma felt incredibly stupid.

"She's a hunter man. Prey can't come stalking her, it's gotta let her ride the vibes and pounce." Tsubasa said, shaking his head.

"And has that worked for you?" Mousse asked.

"I'm not Prey to her, but I'm trying to get there." Tsubasa pointed at Ranma. "But you've always been a goal of hers, so of course she's going to hunt down after you. But if she's truly taken her eye off you, you're pretty much boned."

"I don't need a lecture from someone who never managed a slight bit of concern from her." Ranma said, turning away in a huff.

"And what do you plan to do smart guy?" Tsubasa asked slyly. "Strip down to a speedo and shake your junk at her?"

Ranma and Mousse both looked stricken at that.

"Do you guys even know what to do if flexing doesn't work?"

There was a still silence.

"Oh. That's kinda sad."

"Shut up." Mousse said, 3000 years of Amazon history had no answers for this. Chasing endlessly while showing off your prowess didn't seem to be on the table here.

Ranma had never actually had to try with girls. He just showed up and they gravitated towards him through sheer animal magnetism. But now... it seemed like it wouldn't work anymore. Akane was 'like that', which meant she didn't respond to him at all. She was gone, Akane was...

"Damn it all," Mousse said, punching a fist into the air. "We have to come up with a better plan." Or else, Shampoo will...

"Well, why don't you study?" Tsubasa asked, feeling just a tad sorry for the two bozos.

"Study?" Ranma asked, was there a class for this?

"Sure sure, just pick up some date sims and go from there. There's romance manga, anime and even dramas to look at too." Tsubasa said, shaking his head. "It's not perfect in any stretch, but you guys don't know a thing as it stands."

"You know where to get this stuff?" Ranma asked, looking at the cross dresser with suspicion.

"Don't you have hobbies beyond fighting?" Tsubasa asked, giving Ranma a flat look.

"Of-" Ranma started but he was smothered by Mousse's hand.

"Be quiet!" The Amazon ordered. "I have some money, so if you'd take us to where you get this at..."

"Sure sure." Tsubasa said, hopping out of the can in full dress.

"We appreciate the help." Mousse said, forcefully nodding Ranma's head too.

"MPLGH!" Ranma tried to speak against the guard and it didn't work out. Prying free, he decided to ask what's up. "Why are you going along with him?"

"Because I'm out of ideas!" Mousse returned, cuffing Ranma upside the head. "If blatant sex appeal is out, we need something!"

"But do we have to follow his advice?"

"Do you have any ideas?"

Ranma opened his mouth.

"That aren't variations on what we've tried?"

Ranma closed his mouth.

"So if this gives us ideas, what's the harm in going for it?" Mousse punched Ranma's shoulder. "Stop being a chicken and realize that if you don't start making new allies, you're going to be stuck in a 3 on 1 forever. You've failed miserably against Akane and Kuonji, and Shampoo will likely carry a water bottle to run you away. It's time to stop acting tough and man up already."

"I still don't get why you're so invested in this." Ranma turned away, if only to control his impulse to punch Mousse in the face.

"Your failure is my failure. Shampoo's beyond my reach for now, so you'll have to bring her back down." Mousse gave him a serious look. "I can walk away and you can have no one to help you. Do you think that idiot with the wooden sword would help you? Your father and hers would be better for you?"

"Sorry, it's just hard to trust anything." Ranma spat at the idea of asking his father for help. Bad enough they'd dare lecture him about things, he didn't need to cut his legs off before the race began.

"Then let's follow and see what happens." Mousse said, as they two hurried after Tsubasa.

* * *

"Maa, maa, maa~ It's good to see you again Tsu-chan!" The old woman behind the counter said. She smiled in that Auntly kind of way that seemed to put the customers at ease.

"I brought some customers," Tsubasa said, hooking a thumb towards Ranma and Mousse. "They're looking to get into Visual Novels and Date Sims."

"Certainly all types huh?" They didn't look like otaku by any stretch, but they looked hungry for something. "They have their own gear or will I be performing another service?"

"Yeah, you should set them up with mobile capable stuff." Tsubasa said, taking a good long look at the pair. "They're not looking to set down roots for this kind of thing."

"Just got some tablets in." the shopkeeper said, pointing to the back. "Since I know you have a head for this, I'll let you come back and pick things out."

"I'll be back with what you need, so don't break anything!" Tsubasa said, walking behind the counter and following the woman.

"I still say we don't need this stuff." Ranma said, glowering hate at some of the stuff.

"Yes and like the last ten times you still said it, until you have a better idea, shut up." Mousse retorted, putting on his glasses to check titles.

"I could talk to Akane." Ranma finally thought of something.

"You already did that and you blew it." Mousse said, shaking his head.

"It was your idea to go for sympathy." Ranma countered.

"And what will you say this time?" Mousse examined a particular one set during the middle of an invasion by alien humans from the distant future past in an alternate reality. What the hell...

"Something!"

"And will 'something' work?" Mousse was intrigued about the ancient Chinese robot demigods from the fifth solar empire. Did they have anything like that back home?

"I don't know but I think it's worth a shot." Ranma just didn't want to have to owe Tsubasa anything if this idea worked.

"You think a lot of things are worth a shot, like brewing coffee in your mouth because you don't want to wash the cup." Mousse put the one he had been looking at back and looked at another. Magical sword fighting girls at school? Must be some kind of lesbian title.

"It only burnt for half a minute." Ranma said, feeling defensive.

"And it wouldn't have burnt at all if you washed the cup." Mousse said, rolling his eyes. A sword fighting technique that requires two people to execute? What a crock of shit.

"So we shouldn't try it because you're too scared of it working." Ranma challenged.

"Saotome." Mousse said slowly, putting the case down. "Do you really think you could say what you need to say to bring her back around?"

"How hard could it be?"

Mousse broke the Fist of the White Swan over his head.

"Ow! What was that for?" Ranma rubbed the top of his head.

"You stupid fool, if it were really that easy, this wouldn't have gotten this far." Mousse blurred his hands and picked up the mess he made.

"Che." Ranma looked away but couldn't think of much to say.

"That's what I thought." Mousse said, going back to his browsing. This sounded promising, a magical academy for mages and monsters.

"You don't think it'd work?" Ranma asked softly.

"I know it won't, because we went after Kuonji instead." Mousse retorted. "You said that neither of them hit you and that you completely couldn't get a single word of significance out. You tried, you failed, you have no plan." Was that a snakegirl? Weird.

"Why would I need a plan?" Ranma boasted, trying to force his way through pig headed confidence.

"Because you can't say anything to Akane Tendo." Mousse moved on to another title, having grown bored of the last one. This one said something about Feudal Japan and was immediately set back down by the Chinese boy.

"Of course I can."

"Are they good things?"

"What do you mean?"

"Can you say, 'I like you'?" Mousse said, finally finding something else that caught his eye. Giant robot fighting school? Okay, maybe he'd buy that for his own personal use.

"I like you." Ranma said, rolling his eyes. "Come on."

"Okay, say 'I like you, Akane'. Shouldn't be hard right?" Mousse said, nodding as he read the box further. Definitely had to buy this one.

"I li- I l-l-li..." Ranma shuttered as he tried to say it, but he saw her hateful glare in his mind and faltered again.

"That's what I thought." Mousse said, looking at Ranma fully. "Do you think you could say that to her and have it work?"

_I hate you_... Ranma shivered as he remembered those words.

"Look, when someone offers to help you, the idea is to not argue with them over and over and let them help you." Mousse didn't sound sympathetic at all. Mainly because he was only half paying attention and arguing just to keep Ranma in place.

"I have my pride." Ranma muttered, looking sullen.

"That's about all you'll have." Mousse said, sighing a bit. "But sure, let's just try your idea and fail again, further pushing her and the others away from you. Maybe we should just fuck off on out of here and ask your dad what he thinks of just telling Akane Tendo how you feel works."

"Like that wouldn't be his opening idea." Ranma growled with a frown.

"Do you think he's smart for suggesting it?"

"Hell no."

"Then stop thinking like him and think like yourself." Mousse found another intriguing title. A shrine of demon slayers who have to wear skimpy outfits to wield their power correctly. Might be good...

"Do you really think this will help?"

"Better than just running in and getting slapped aside again."

Tsubasa came back at the right time to have missed the entire argument.

"Hey, come up to the counter, I got your tablet PCs ready." The cross dresser said with a smile.

"Tablet what?" Ranma asked.

"They're a handheld computer, very portable and very trendy," Tsubasa explained, pointing to a stack of PC boxes. "See that box over there?"

"Yeah?" Mousse decided to speak up because Ranma seemed lost.

"It's basically like that but something you can easily carry around without too much hassle." Tsubasa said shrugging. "I got a desktop at my place."

"Do you now?" Mousse said, not caring.

"Well, anyways these are the latest that just came out in America last week." Tsubasa said, picking up the thin, flat black device with a shiny screen. "High definition display, has a keyboard so you can use it as a laptop as well. Has a disk drive and several USB ports as well. Speakers to play audio too. Built in wifi adapter for browsing the internet."

Ranma had no idea what Tsubasa was talking about.

"Now gentlemen," the old woman said, deciding to do some of the work. "Not all the latest in Visual Novels or Date Sims are on disc, so you can buy the download here at the counter and I'll give the keycode to download it, but it'll cost you extra."

"That's fine, I have plenty of money and a need to spend it." Mousse said, in a tone that spoke don't upsell me and I'll make it rain yen notes on you.

"Maa, Tsu-chan can help you find the best starters for you. I'll be at the register ~ 3."

Mousse wondered if he should ask about the heart.

"So, who do I start with?" Tsubasa asked, hoping it wouldn't be Ranma.

"Just me for now, I'm the brains of the outfit." Mousse said, putting an arm around Tsubasa's shoulders.

"I'll have to help him too right?" Tsubasa asked, looking back towards Ranma.

"No, because he probably doesn't understand any of this." Mousse said, before making a demonstration. "Saotome, what's that on the counter?"

"A... er, table PC?" Ranma sounded hopeful too, how sad.

"I rest my case." Mousse said as Tsubasa looked like he ate some poison.

* * *

"So how come I don't get one of them things?" Ranma asked, trying not to be jealous as Mousse played with his new gadget.

"Because you'd likely break it and you complained about it so much." Mousse said, flipping through a web page for the news.

"I didn't say I didn't want one."

"Well you should have thought about that before you bitched about things." Mousse said, leading them to a house by a river. "Good, looks like no one is here."

"What're we doing here?" Ranma asked, looking at the small building with curiosity.

"We're staying here for the time being," Mousse explained. "I managed to set it up with the owner while you were in the bathroom back at the gas station."

"Lucky." Ranma said with a whistle.

"We'll have to go for our own food, but it's close to the nearby woods that we'll be able to train and I'll have a place to keep this charged." Mousse said, holding it up. "I'm going to be training my brain so I can come up with a plan to win this little fight of ours."

"And what am I doing?" Ranma asked, picking his nose.

"Training yourself so you stop flinching in front of the girls." Mousse said with a shrug.

"But how?" Ranma asked.

"I don't know, how did you learn not to flinch when someone tries to punch you?" Mousse asked, glowering at him. "Look, there's some instant food in the house so let's eat and then figure this crap out ok?"

"Geez, don't have to bite my head off." Ranma grumbled.

"Look, Saotome." Mousse said trying to reign in the impulse to tell him to fuck off. "I hate you and you probably think I'm an asshole so let's can the bullshit. I need you and there's no one left for you to turn to for help, so just stop complaining about everything if you can't come up with better."

"You think this is easy on me?"

"I don't give a rat's ass how easy or not it is for you." Mousse said, contemplating trying to bury a knife between the mouthy bastard's eyes. "All I care about is for you to shut up and stop second guessing me when you got shit all for suggestions."

Ranma stared at Mousse and it seemed a fight was imminent.

"Go ahead, fight me. Then run off back to your dad and beg him to help you." Mousse replied, wilting Ranma's posture immediately. "You think he'd do better? That he won't rub your nose in it that you fucked up even if it isn't your fault?"

"I know he would."

"Then believe me, I would be happy if we didn't have to even talk to each other." Mousse said, gesturing between them. "But we need to come up with something and if you don't have anything that will improve our chances, keep it to yourself."

Ranma looked at the ground and then back up at Mousse. The desire to fight was still there, but diminished greatly.

"You know, I'm putting myself out for you. I bought this shit so you could learn how to woo Shampoo. _I'm_ _**helping **__**you**_ learn how to capture her heart and that could pretty much place her out of my reach forever." Mousse verbally hit Ranma in his gut, right in his guilt complex where he had that beautiful tendency to crumple if he felt he was at fault at all. Not that he'd admit it, but it was obvious that he wouldn't argue back much more.

"I didn't ask you to do it."

"You didn't turn me down."

A wind blew and Ranma spun on heel, signifying he was conceding the argument.

"This had better work." Ranma said, marching for the house.

"If you don't fuck it up." Mousse returned, finally going back to his browsing.

And so over the next several days they settled into a routine, Mousse consuming all sorts of romantically inclined media and Ranma training himself to stop stalling out in a conversation with Akane. It wasn't exactly ideal but it was all they had for now. Results were slow, but they were coming along nicely.

* * *

The sea, to Cologne's sensibilities, fully reflected how she was as a person: calm and serene, yet capable of great turbulence and destruction. Though for much of her long life, she had lived too far inland to be able to see it often, but she still felt calmed by it nonetheless. It had been a haven for her doing her youth, when it seemed like the world was going to fall out from underneath her.

So many of her relatives, friends and other people she at least knew had died in the wars back then. So many people with hopes for a better future for the tribes were gone in the blink of an eye. Even her own daughter, who exiled herself in protest of carrying on a long and drawn out war, had long walked away from her.

Now she sought the sea's calming effects as she mused over Shampoo's similar departure from her life and the effort to bring her back into it by the one person she ought to not trust with the task.

"So reflective this morning Grandmother?" A man said from behind her, he was dressed all in black with a pair of shades on despite the lack of sun.

"It can't be helped," Cologne replied, turning to look at her sudden conversation partner. "It's been over two weeks now and no word from that foolish boy."

"He probably won't quit until he's dead." The man said, shaking his head. "No matter how much she rejects him."

"You walk a thin line Razor."

"I suppose the habit runs in the family. My daughter, me, my mother, and you." Razor laughed a little, a wild guttural sound from his belly that sounded almost like the growlings of a wild animal.

"Hmph, you still have a mouth on you." Cologne said, smiling with genuine warmth despite her sharp words. "I suspect you are correct though, I was just hoping for a sign."

Much like his namesake, he struck the heart of the matter. "Just like with Mother, you couldn't raise your hand against Shampoo at all."

"That time, she had expected me to strike her down. She was willing to die and have me removed from power in order to save us all." Cologne turned back to the sea, squinting in the mist. "And like her grandmother before her, Shampoo had stood there in front me and declared what she wanted."

"Just like when Shampoo wanted to train at Jusenkyo." Razor too looked towards the sea, hoping to connect better to the turbulent feelings inside the old woman next to him. "We both warned her that nothing was ever worth venturing into Jusenkyo, but she thought differently of him."

"He was, in terms of skills, I suppose." Cologne allowed, craning her head slightly in contemplation. "I thought I had saw glimpses of you and your father in him, but when boys his age are looking towards the future, he was content where he was regardless of what happened."

"Even if it wasn't him, maybe it would have been nice to have those same feelings of dependability." Razor thought of the Saotome boy and could only laugh a little. "Maa, it's too bad. I would have enjoyed training him if he married my daughter."

"I would say we could throw our lot in with his but..." Cologne trailed off, looking to Razor.

"... Shampoo never asks much of anything from you. When she is willing to stand in front of you and declare something, it is pretty much final." Razor finished for her, smiling with paternal pride. "We could rescind the exile."

"How?" Cologne was intrigued by this train of thought.

"Call his victories over her a fluke. The one while he was cursed was after Shampoo had fought most of the day and she got impatient. It's hardly definitive to just knock her off the log. The second, she recounted to me, sounds like an accident. No one would buy that as a worthy defeat." Razor made his case, though more for the sake of easing the old woman's worries.

"There is the matter of the boy's challenge while Shampoo was under the reversal jewel." Cologne said, tapping her cane onto the pier. "Bah, if we could prove that he was unfit for marriage, the elders back home would bend over backwards to bring Shampoo back."

"Proving it will be hard, since she did decide to make that bold declaration before.' Razor said, pursing his lips in concentration. "Maa, even so, we could lift our own bans on seeing her if we wish without them being able to say anything."

"Because as it stood before she dropped her pursuit of him, she was already effectively exiled." Cologne said, pondering how to spin it. "Anyhow, we shall leave things as they are now. I will speak to her when she is ready."

"And when you are as well?" Razor smirked, stretching a little.

"You really are too perceptive for someone who acts so aloof." Cologne laughed, banging her staff onto the pier.

"I understand your fears," Razor said quietly, looking in the approximate direction of the village. "Just like with mother, you want her back."

Cologne sighed, joining her grandson in his homeward gazing.

Razor stretched in the silence that followed and headed back towards their makeshift home in an abandoned restaurant.

"What do you want for breakfast Granny?" Razor asked as he turned back with a smile. "I'll make you whatever you want."

"I'm in the mood for some fish today." Cologne decided, pogoing after him. "I'll teach you how to make it like your grandfather used to."

It was going to be a good day, they both thought, the sea was pretty calm this morning.

* * *

Ah, Joketsuzoku, the fabled home of the Chinese Amazons that sat hidden away from the modern world in a forgotten mountain range. It was a curious place, one that stood against the growing age of cynicism and still believed in magic and other things people might call silly. Though they weren't alone in the valley, the tribe enjoyed a larger share of the land than the Phoenix who were content to stay on their mountain these days, or the Musk who had receded in number and stature since the last war.

But all was not well, as this greater amount of land meant a greater need of protection and a strong war presence. Peace was simply what they called the still air in between the major wars, and though it had been decades since the last one, no one was relaxing. Social changes had finally been allowed to shake loose and form something beyond a loose groupings of huts on a battlefield.

It was a frankly barbaric place to be born into, where life was cheap and dignity was not screaming as something tore you limb from limb.

Yet still, the tribe that lived in the village of Joketsuzoku never considered moving beyond the mountains and joining the rest of the nation. Even if they looked up the world of the outsiders with a secretly jealous eye, they were very protective of their history and culture to the point of frustrating stubbornness. But it was for the greater good, or so the elders would tell the children, who just pretended to listen.

For the Amazon known as Mousse, he did not feel a single bit homesick. If anything, it was great that Shampoo left because he could just casually follow her without being reprimanded for abandoning his duties to the tribe. Make sure nothing happened to the champion? Mousse was not that kind of person, especially since he decided that that champion was to be his bride, tribal customs be damned.

Even his own mother gave him disappointed looks for wanting to marry in-tribe.

Shampoo was the best of all the girls in the tribe, and he was certain there wasn't an outsider woman who could eclipse her either. Some folks just didn't understand what written in the stars meant, that was all. But still, he didn't need the constant mockery from his peers about it, or even being told by his sensei that he was a fool.

That sensei, who happened to be Shampoo's father, had taught him how to be a warrior when no one else had seen his potential. That same sensei seemed to have the respect of most elders, a rare thing for a man even as the mores of old had slowly changed. But that same sensei had told him to forget marrying Shampoo, the girl who captured his heart when she kicked him in the face.

He learned quickly not to actually tell people that part of his past, if only to avoid their weirded out faces and questioning glances.

Ranma Saotome, the name ran through his brain like a curse. The name of the outsider who had doomed Shampoo to her current life of exile carried with it a certain level of anger and resentment. But here he was, offering his help to that wretch, because even if she was mostly out of his reach as a member of the tribe, she was forever out of it as an exile.

Women were expressly forbidden from killing males outside of punishment for the most severe crimes. That law had saved him many times, even from the wrath of the old bat who would have loved nothing more than to fatten his cursed form up and make Peking duck out of him. But now? Now Shampoo didn't have to obey any of the laws and could simply cut him to ribbons if she so much as lay eyes on him.

Even worse than that was that he would be exiled for interacting with an exile, meaning he would be killed if he ever set foot back home.

And though he didn't miss that place, he didn't hold a particular love for the world of the outsiders either. They were a shifty lot, with a smug sense of accomplishment for doing absolutely nothing beyond still being alive. Bad enough that Shampoo had been defeated by an outsider, worse now that she apparently had decided she would live and die amongst them.

It did nothing to help his mood that he had to lower himself to helping Ranma win her back. Him and Shampoo could have been married by now if not for him meddling in their affairs like he did, but for the sake of even sharing the same space as her he had to-

"Huh, I got the harem ending."

It was yet another (very, very small) victory for Mousse after spending the last few days holed up in their rented house pouring over the date sims and visual novels he had collected. Embarrassing as they were, through these "games" he was learning things at a rapid pace that most who thought him a simple idiot would be surprised. However, he wasn't an idiot because he was just stupid, no he was an idiot because of his blinding obsession!

"That doesn't sound much better, I need to work on that." Mousse muttered to himself, wondering why he had to get such a depressing internal monologue. He set down his tablet and went to the door. "Well, this should be enough. I'd better find that idiot and tell him I have a new plan."

Going outside, however, he found no sign of Ranma anywhere, just the backyard of the house and the rushing creek. Now that he thought about it, Ranma hadn't been around at all last night, either.

"Oh great, he could've gone anywhere and I don't really have time to waste running around town again..."

He had an idea.

"Wait a second, this is perfect." Mousse whispered, a small smile on his face. "I said we needed allies and this is the opportunity to find them. Ranma would only impede that so in essence, this is the best thing that could happen!" Mousse quickly went to find a register of Furinkan High.

_I'll find you in due time, Saotome, but I'll make sure we have an army for this battle...!_

* * *

Outside a cafe in the middle of Nerima's Market Square, Mousse stood on the sidewalk, looking at the pictures of the girls seated just inside the window.

"Kozuki Yayoi, Shirai Shizuya, Ibuki Kikuko." He said aloud, all three were in Akane Tendo's class at school. "I can't keep an eye on Shampoo anymore, so I need a patsy to do it for me. Now, I just have to be able to read them..." Yayoi had a temper that matched her red hair, Shizuya was laid back and calm with her earthen brown hair, and Kikuko seemed to be the dark one of them, her humor and ideas often blacker than her hair.

_Go in and talk to them, use what you can from each of their reactions to get them to follow along._ Mousse thought, replacing his old glasses with a new pair that worked as well but didn't make him look stupid. _Find the flow, trip the flags, get their loyalty._

It was easier said than done, but Mousse didn't have time to worry about that. If he couldn't sway three idiots like them, he could forget this plan. That determination grasped, Mousse opened the door and slipped in.

"Ladies, just look what walked in." Shizuya said, being the one facing the door.

"I like Chinese." Yayoi said, a very unladylike grin splitting her face.

"I was hoping for Korean." Kikuo said with a pout. "I hear they're pretty spicy."

The other two broke down into giggles.

"Hey, he's coming over this way." Shizuya said, quieting the table as Mousse came to a stop by them.

"Ladies," he said, surprising them with his perfect Japanese.

"Hey, I recognize you now!" Yayoi said, pointing a finger at Mousse. "You're that Chinese guy fighting with Saotome all the time!"

"That's me, but we have suspended our hostility for now." Mousse said, bowing a little. "I am Mu Tsu, but Mousse is fine too."

"I'll say," Kikuko muttered under her breath.

"May I have a seat?" he asked, trying to remain polite in front of them if only to keep things on to topics he wished to discuss.

"Sure sure." Yayoi said, daring the other two to decline with a threatening look.

"No objections here." Shizuya said, looking to Kikuko, who only nodded.

"Thank you." Mousse said, smoothly pulling out his chair and sitting down.

"So what'd you want?" Shizuya asked, before Yayoi could start anything.

"Hey!" Yayoi protested, only to be shushed by the other two.

"There'll be plenty of time to talk, business before pleasure." Mousse gave a little smirk and all three girls fought not swooning. "Anyways, I'm sure you've no doubt heard what transpired between Akane Tendo and Ranma."

"Oh boy, tell me about it." Yayoi said, plunging her straw into her drink. "Fuckin' bitch."

"Her boyfriend dumped her." Kikuko helpfully explained, to which Mousse failed to adequately care.

"Anyways, the reason why I called a truce with Ranma is simple, I want to return things back to the way they were." Mousse declared, looking rather serious. "Akane Tendo has acted rather selfishly and pulled Ukyo Kuonji and Shampoo with her down a wicked path."

"Shampoo?" Yayoi asked.

"Girl who broke the cafeteria wall a few months back." Shizuya supplied.

"Oh her." Yayoi looked nonplus at this reminder.

"Yes, and those three have smashed everything, not caring who got caught in the aftermath." Mousse said, looking from girl to girl.

He had their undivided attention as all three sat up straight.

"You got a way at getting back at Akane?" Yayoi seemed eager for blood.

"Not yet, but I'm getting closer." Mousse said, clenching his fist. "And I need allies, more than just Ranma. If anything, he's the final piece of the puzzle and I need people to help me find the rest."

"So what, you gonna hook her back up with Ranma?" Shizuya asked, looking confused.

"Akane was pretty miserable though." Kikuko pointed out.

"Heh, that would probably be the best revenge." Yayoi said, as all three started exuding darkness.

"You have our attention," Shizuya declared, all three snickering with evil.

_Jackpot..._ Mousse thought to himself, resisting the urge to break out into an evil smile.

* * *

And so it came to pass. Shampoo was getting ready to head over to the school to help Ukyo sell out of cart, and was locking up the shop. However, danger lurked on the horizon as a very sheltered and naive girl approached. Yayoi looked down her nose at Shampoo and wondered what Mousse exactly saw in her. Aside from those gargantuan tits, the red haired girl just couldn't see it.

Thinking about it, she really should have gotten that surgery Kazuma was offering.

"Che, what am I worked up about? He wouldn't notice me if I was naked and begging thanks to this bitch." In the small time she had gotten to know Mousse, she fell head first for the lug. Dressed in her own long Chinese style dress, green to accent her red hair, it fully felt like it was time to declare war.

"Aiyah, work rough as usual, but Shampoo persevere." The ex-Amazon said as she wiped her forehead. "Who is you?"

Yayoi stood there, about ten feet away and just looked at Shampoo. "Hmph, you're nothing special."

"If Shampoo nothing special, you is just nothing." Shampoo gave Yayoi a quick once over and found her to be like most of the girls that stopped in: flighty, shiftless, and far too up their own ass than what's good for them.

"Pfft, bitch you wish you were half as hot as I am." Yayoi said, feeling even angrier that Mousse was hung up on her.

"If no customer, you is to be going away then." Shampoo made a shooing motion, not even taking the insult serious enough to reply to. "Is bad for business if kill stupid people in front of shop. If want die, you can come round back, easier to hide body."

"Hah, you talk tough but that's all you do." Yayoi rolled her eyes and flipped Shampoo off. "But I got a question."

That was odd, most of the people didn't have the guts to stand there and trade barbs with her. "Okay, out with it, Shampoo answer." She was owed that much of a service.

"Have you seen Saotome? People were asking around for him so I thought I'd see if you came across him." Yayoi said, as nonchalant as she could manage.

"Shampoo no seen Ranma and Shampoo thank stars above is so." Shampoo could guess who they were, but it didn't matter. "If Shampoo know better, Crazy Gymnast Girl probably snatch Ranma up."

Yayoi barely heard the answer, she had gotten lost in her own head as she thought about Shampoo and how she had Mousse's heart in her hand. And how she dropped on the ground and stomped on it. It was bad enough having to play second fiddle to Akane all the time, but she wasn't going to fall behind some stupid foreigner who didn't bother learning how to properly speak the language.

"Does it make you feel big?" Yayoi asked, looking Shampoo right in the eyes. "Like a woman to just dump those who care about you and step on their hearts?"

Shampoo's eyebrows rose, before she developed a darkly amused expression and let out a throaty chuckle. This one wasn't talking about Ranma.

"You think you is knowing shit, yes?" Shampoo asked. "Mousse is idiot who thinks getting smacked around mean Shampoo is being hard to get. Shampoo never dump that trash, because Shampoo never like it."

"And that's totally not because you're so full of yourself I can see your veins." Yayoi snapped back, trying her level best to stare Shampoo down. "I'm not surprised you can't see what's right in front of you."

"Only thing in front of Shampoo is stupid girl on duck dick who about to be on Shampoo foot if she no watch mouth." Shampoo said, face becoming serious.

"Am I supposed to be scared?" Yayoi tempted fate a little.

"No no, if you get frightened, you run away." Shampoo said with a laugh. "Then Shampoo no can kill."

"Why would I run from you, you stupid cow?" Yayoi really needed to learn to read the air better, because she would have noticed how calm and still things have gotten.

"Because you value life." Shampoo was eying her entry point, she was going to ruin this bitch's shit.

"You keep saying that." Yayoi said, not taking her eyes from the former Amazon. "But all you do is threaten and threaten but you never do it. You're like Heero Yuy with a pair of balloons tied to your chest!"

"Stupid Red want demonstration?" Shampoo asked, right before she blurred from sight.

_Where did she go_? Yayoi thought to herself, before Shampoo appeared right in her face.

Beyond the sightline of the targeted girl, Shampoo's arms were poised out to strike. Another second and Shampoo's hands would slam down into the gaps of Yayoi's collarbones, before a rough tug would messily tear her ribcage asunder.

It was that close proximity, however, that averted the fear of death and the effects it could have on Yayoi's panties. Green eyes stared into red as Yayoi could only find herself mesmerized as it looked like Shampoo was a living doll. Her skin seemed to be made of porcelain, her eyes brilliant jewels, those lips looked so soft and inviting. Yayoi could hardly breathe, hardly do anything other than be transfixed to the spot.

They looked so kissable, the lips of the woman about to do something horrible to her. What did they feel like, what did that delicate skin feel like? From afar she seemed like a plain girl, but up close she was overwhelmingly beautiful. Wherever Yayoi looked on Shampoo, she could only be hypnotized more.

Shampoo landed lightly, her face in the other girl's, her hands lowered as she looked into that face of wonder. Yayoi's hands were twitching as if she wanted to grab hold of Shampoo and never let go. Shampoo gave a little self-satisfied smirk before she briefly, oh so briefly, brushed her lips with Yayoi's.

"Ahh!" Yayoi gasped, falling back as the spell broke. Her hand came to her lips as her face changed colors from red to white and back. "What the... I..."

"Stupid Red see difference between us?" Shampoo asked, making another kissing motion.

Yayoi's heart pounded in her ears as she realized what had occurred. Shampoo kissed her after she had all but passed out due to being that close to her. But she wasn't... she was so sure...

"I have to go." Yayoi said, turning around and running away as best she could on shaky legs. This was supposed to be her declaration of war, what happened?

"Ho, you ain't cheatin' on us are you sugar?" Ukyo asked, smirking a little as she exited the restaurant to see the commotion.

"Shampoo just overwhelm her with sexy." Shampoo answered with a smile. Hopping over, she gave her girlfriend a kiss as a means of atonement.

"Mmm, I was getting worried when you said something about killing her." Ukyo said after they parted lips.

"Heh, in way, Shampoo still did."

"Well, forget her and come on, lunch rush at the school's about to start."

Laughing, Shampoo fell into step with Ukyo.

* * *

Landing atop the wall of the Kuno estate the next morning, Mousse looked across the mist-shrouded grounds that separated him from his objective, the mansion itself. Of course Ranma would end up in the clutches of the one girl who had not decided to kick him in the dick. Given how long he'd been missing, she had probably done all manner of things to it but that.

_That's really what I need, that idiot not even settling for a medal after he lost the Gold, Silver, and Bronze!_ He needed to get in there, assess the situation and, if necessary, break out of there with Ranma before Kodachi sunk her claws even deeper into him than they already were.

Before he could leap into action, however, he paused as he felt the presence of a threat, peering at him from the mists below. Thanks to the very same mists during these early hours, he wasn't able to read the sign that had been posted right next to where he started his climb, if he had he would've had a very good idea about _thing_ down there that far from friendly and very, very hungry.

Yes, there was plenty of times like this back home, as a large predator had attacked a hunting party he was on three years ago. He had survived through quick wit and quicker feet, but that incident was supposed have been left behind in the outsider world. That was only back home, only back home!

"Ahhhh, I thought I left this stupid shit!" Mousse screamed as he leapt over the lunging bite of Kodachi Kuno's prized pet: The horrific achievement of science that combined an alligator, a crocodile, god knows what else into a monster that could only be a denial of the benevolence of the deity who knows what had created such a thing. Mr. Green Turtle she called him, after her first pet who died mysteriously. To be fair to her, she was a botanist, not a herpetologist... and to be even fairer, not many of them could figure out just what Mr. Green Turtle was specifically.

Kodachi paused and adjusted her lace teddy, as if sensing her precious baby springing into action.

"It seems Mr. Green Turtle has made a friend," she said with a haughty giggle, as she double checked the tray of food. Only a fourth of it was poisoned, a low for her to be certain. Not like her patient could escape, ohohohoho...

Ranma pried his eyes open and immediately regretted the decision as the light stung his eyes. He closed them quickly before he opened them as slits, trying to ascertain where he was. He could feel he was laying down, on a very very soft bed with a fluffy pillow propping him up. From what little he could see and the aroma of the place, it was likely a girl's room.

It seemed spacious, which ruled out the Tendo's place, and Ukyo's as well since she lived in an apartment above her place. Besides, he couldn't get that lucky, not after everything had transpired. He then tried to sit up to get a better view but that was when he finally processed the weights holding him down.

With a shake of his arms, he determined that yes, those were chains. Obviously since it wasn't a hospital, it was a girl who knew him. A large room and crazy enough to chain a person to a bed, even if they were possibly sick? That could only mean...

"Kodachi." He said aloud just as the owner of the room came in. He felt a pit form in his stomach as he saw her light up in recognition of the fact that he was awake.

"Ranma-sama, you're finally awake and alert?" She asked as she hurried over to the bed, expertly depositing the tray on the bedside table and putting her face right in his. "Yes, it seems you're finally conscious again."

"Again?" He parroted, slightly weak as he tried to flinch too much with her so close.

"You've been in and out of consciousness for the last four days." Kodachi explained, stepping back a little so he could see she was barely dressed. "I found you washed up on the shore and it looked like I had arrived just in time. Sensei was so amazed that you were alive and I was beside myself with worry."

He had to make sure he got all the details right. "You found me?" The idea that she was just out on a leisurely stroll and found him unconscious somewhere seemed too convenient.

"I was walking Mr. Green Turtle, he'd been getting fat so I've put him on a diet." She casually explained, making sure to draw his attention to her barely covered breasts. "Only one boar a day instead of his usual five, and we go for an endurance run. Brother hasn't been playing with him as much and no one has jumped the walls in sometime so he was getting fat and slow. Hardly able to even chase a rodent around for entertainment."

Ranma focused on what she was saying, even if his eyes lingered on her scantily clad figure. What kind of turtle ate boar... wait, that was her pet monster thing, that part alligator, part crocodile, full nightmare she called Green Turtle. She was crazy, even if she was seeming rather sexy right now.

"Any more questions?"

"Why are you dressed like that?" He was fairly certain of the answer, but it came out anyways.

"This is my room silly." Kodachi said with a faint giggle. "It was the only place to keep you in case Brother decided to slay the foul sorcerer while he was weakened. Did you expect me to sleep elsewhere?"

Actually, he had. "I don't know any magic."

"That's not true; you certainly cast a spell on me." She even blushed and looked at the floor, even toeing it like this was some kind of moe love comedy show!

Ranma was hardly unaffected, as he flushed slightly as he felt his heart jump a little. _Could she really be... cute?_ He thought to himself, remembering all the times she seemed like the scariest person in the world. And now, she was all blushing like this was some silly love comedy thing and ahhhh...

Wait, that hadn't been him, that came from outside.

"What the..." He couldn't locate a window to look towards and the chains prevented him from turning in bed.

"Someone jumped the wall and Mr. Green Turtle is just saying hello." Kodachi said, gosh she was just being so helpful.

_Mousse, he must have been trying to find me after I got lost during training..._ Ranma thought to himself as he breathed a sigh of relief. "Why am I chained up?"

"You were roughed up so horribly." Kodachi said, feigning tears to try and ward off his anger at being tied down. "Sensei said you needed a lot of rest and food, and I won't let you out of that bed until you're strong enough to break them."

"But I'm fine!" Ranma protested, receiving a dubious look that made him feel like an ass.

"Can you break them?"

"Easily!" Ranma bragged, before attempting to break them. Half a minute later, he was out of breath and panting in amazement. _My strength... it's gone!_

"See?" Kodachi said, looking at him with pleading eyes. "You're still weak and you haven't gotten more than some miso soup before you've passed out again."

_So I haven't had a significant meal since leaving Ucchan's?!_ Ranma looked stricken, before trying to facilitate his escape with some old fashioned pleading. "I'd like to be able to feed myself, so could you undo the chains?"

Had this been any other time, any other place, and had the girl not been a little nutty, that probably would have worked. Instead, she simply laughed at him a little and went over the table and picked up the tray.

"Hey, I said-"

"Please, Ranma-sama, I know this is embarrassing to you but if you have not the strength to free yourself, then you would not be able to escape me anyways." She picked up the bowl of beef and rice, along with some chopsticks. "Now let's focus on you getting better and save the dramatics hm? If not for Sensei's instructions, I wouldn't be restraining myself as I am."

"Restraining yourself?" He asked, before accepting the clump of meat and rice begrudgingly.

"From simply laying with you as a man and woman are supposed to, silly." She gave him a smile half-coy, half-something else. "You have not the strength to satisfy the passion that burns within me, so I will refrain in the hopes of showing you just what a good wife I can be. But once you're strong enough, I will give myself to you, all of me."

Ranma simply chewed the food as he tried not be drawn in by her heavy declarations.

"But for now, rest and regain your strength." Kodachi held out another bite with a waning smile on her face. "Your Kodachi will make sure you can stand again as the brilliant man you are."

Though feeling slightly embarrassed, Ranma could only eat in silence and not protest too much. She was, after all, willing to nurse him back to health instead of pushing him back into the water to drown.

_My Kodachi..._ He thought as he ate. _Has a nice ring to it..._

* * *

"Finally lost it," Mousse said as he perched himself by a high window. "For something that huge, it moved like it was Ranma."

Luckily for the dubious ally of Ranma, it couldn't attack as fast that bastard. But still, there were several instances where he was nearly turned into a meal as a human, so it wasn't like it was easy.

"Couldn't even attack back." He muttered to himself, catching his breath. "I was hoping for an open window but..." Snapping into action, Mousse's hands blurred, pulling glass cutters from deep within his sleeves. Deftly, in the space between a second, he cut himself a hole to climb through. "Good." Gently, he pushed the hole open, making sure to not let the cut section fall to the floor as he slipped in and rested on the sill. In another brief gasp of time, he sealed the cut shut and hopped to the floor, landing gracefully.

"Oh?" one of the female wait staff asked as she spotted Mousse come skulking out from the hallway. "And who are you sir?"

Mousse threw his brain into overdrive and tried to come up with something. "Yes, I'm here to see the mistress of the house. I've been waiting forever and it seems everyone has forgotten about me."

"Ah, Akitsu rang you in?" the woman answered, nodding her head. "He always forgets about guests. If you'll follow me, Mistress Kodachi is currently entertaining a guest."

_From what Saotome's said, I can guess how she's entertaining him_. Mousse thought to himself, before smiling broadly. "Thank you!"

The effect was fast and immediate, as the maid turned away with a blush and a giggle.

_Don't get angry if he's being all close to this Kodachi_. Mousse kept his thoughts to himself, following quietly to Kodachi's room. _Don't call him out on betraying Shampoo, she betrayed him first._

"Mistress," the maid said as she knocked on the door. "You have a visitor."

"I told you there was to be no interruptions!" Kodachi yelled, causing the woman to jump. Nevertheless, the door soon opened a little. "Let's be quick, what do you want?"

"Where's Saotome?" Mousse said immediately.

"And makes you think he's here?" Kodachi asked, ready to close the door and call security.

"Because you're holed up in your room, like you have something you don't want other people to know about." Mousse said, causing Kodachi to pause.

"And you are?"

"His training partner, he was with me when he had his unfortunate accident."

There was a brief pause and the air became unsettled.

"Very well, he's indicating he wishes to speak with you. But be quick, I am nursing him back to health" Kodachi said, sliding the door open to reveal herself still clad in lingerie.

"I take it you subscribe to intimate healing." Mousse quipped, studiously not looking at her. "What happened to him?"

Kodachi's voice was a bare murmur. "My servants found him washed up on the river's bank behind the estate several days ago. After they bathed him they brought him to me." She said as she led him deeper into the sanctum of her room.

_This is...!_ Mousse managed to hold back his shock well at the sight of Ranma chained to the bed.

"Yo," Ranma said, managing a tiny wave. "As you can see, I'm being forced to take some bed rest."

"Seems you still have a bit of that devil's luck to you." Mousse said, looking at how weak Ranma seemed at the moment. _After all, you are a devil so it's no surprise._

"For as much good as it's been doing for me." Ranma said, managing a laugh to keep the mood from getting too sour. "I got lost in the training and I forgot to eat. It's no wonder I wound up dropping off the side and into the rapids."

"Yeah, we both did..." Mousse shook his head, as he was starting to feel sorry for Ranma. "Took me awhile to track you down."

"And may I ask what you were doing?" Kodachi asked, sheathed in darkness behind Mousse.

"You haven't heard?" Mousse asked, looking to Ranma.

"It's not something a guy can just say!" Ranma said, struggling weakly against the chains.

"Well, the gist of it is after the festival disaster-" Mousse started, before Ranma interrupted as he clarified for Kodachi.

"The one where your brother defeated Otsumo the Heavy Metal Shark in a karaoke duel."

"Why do you remember that?"

"I dunno, I think I had a dream about being taken as his apprentice."

Mousse just fell silent and stared at Ranma.

"Sorry, just providing context."

"_Anyways_, after that, it seems Shampoo got together with Akane Tendo and Ukyo Kuonji and dumped him." Mousse said as the word dumped metaphorically buried Ranma on the bed.

"Those three? Just like that?" Kodachi couldn't believe it, they dumped that prime specimen of man?!

"It was a pretty bad scene." Mousse wondered why he had to explain it to her, surely she had shown up.

"She probably doesn't remember much of it, she got blown up by one of the exploding chickens." Ranma said, explaining a lot of things to Mousse.

"What was with that?" Mousse had used explosive chicken eggs before but the whole thing just seemed wrong.

"It was a publicity stunt apparently. Dyna-King House of Fried Chicken, where the flavor explodes in your mouth!" Ranma said, only really remembering it because he was going to sample some when Kuno attacked him.

"You know, as I think about it." Mousse said, viewing what he knew of the events in their current light. "I'd pretty much want to just give up too."

"Hey!"

"Those harlots, dumping Ranma-sama like that!" Kodachi seemed incensed, but it was mostly because she missed the Heavy Metal Shark. After Ranma, it was the only thing she wanted to see and she got knocked out before he even took the stage!

"Isn't that a good thing?" Mousse asked, kinda surprised at her reaction. "I mean, he's completely unattached now in every way."

"Hmph, if it was because they acknowledged I was their superior in all things, I would let it slide. But this is an affront to the very man I pledged my heart to!" Kodachi declared, shaking a fist to the heavens.

_She's completely nuts._ Mousse thought to himself, but if she feels like this...

"Anywho, I'm currently trying to work myself into shape to prove that they made a mistake in letting me go." Ranma said, some of the old fire still burning behind his words.

"Yeah, and I'm helping him because Shampoo is exiled now." Mousse added.

"Why don't you just go after her?" Ranma asked, wondering what he had to do with the ex-Amazon and her admirer.

"Because she'll kill me."

"Come again?"

"The laws prohibiting her from just chopping my head off are no longer on the field."

"Really?"

"What?"

"I just didn't expect there'd be laws in place to protect you."

"Don't think of them as a bunch of man haters because of the name, men are a precious commodity because we're so few."

"Really?"

"You don't think either of them wouldn't just kill me if they could? How often do I bad mouth the old bag just to get a bump on the head?"

"Huh. And now that she's exiled..."

"She doesn't face any punishments for it. In fact, if I so much as appear before her while she's exiled I can be thrown out as well."

"Harsh."

"We depend on each other for survival. If someone you trusted your life to betrayed you, I doubt you'd want to see much of them ever again."

A silence fell over the two then.

"Trust... huh..." Ranma said, trailing off as he thought about everything once again.

* * *

Times like this, Ryoga Hibiki wished he had fallen in a cool spring, like drowned bear or tiger instead of pig. Something that didn't leave him a tiny piglet and would be a strength rather than a weakness. Other times like this, he remembered that such a strength turned into a crutch and left you easy to knock over if caught leaning on it when it's pulled away.

Rain, Ryoga decided, would always suck. He held the umbrella firm as he twirled it deftly to deflect the droplets. That was his weakness against Ranma, he always picked up useless shit that remained useless, while that damnable Saotome could turn getting punched in the dick into an effective attack.

Well, that was an exaggeration but still, Ranma could absorb punishment like he was a human sponge.

Always was like that, Ryoga thought as he looked back over the fights they had over their long rivalry. No matter how much stronger Ryoga got, it seemed like Ranma just breathed in deep and leveled up past him. It was just so unfair, to have his hard work brushed aside like it was nothing.

"But all that is changing," Ryoga whispered to himself, a reminder that it was real and not a dream. "Because Akane-san is gone and Ranma is slowly becoming full of holes."

Sure, he had lost horrendously versus Ranma in their last fight, but he had landed the first actual hit of significance and force Ranma to actually give some form of effort. Not since that brawl on top of their old school when he hit Ranma from a blind spot did he actually get him moving so heated without being desperate.

"Akane-san has wrecked Ranma's cool and calm demeanor." The fact that he was so angry during that fight proved that even the unshakeable Ranma had something that could tear at him that much. "And even now, she's moving on into a world where he no longer exists. Even if I can't share that path and world with her, I will endure just to see Ranma suffer."

That twisted thinking again, why did he hate Ranma Saotome so much anyways?

"He's always looking down at everyone else." Ryoga muttered, subconsciously kicking up his walking speed into a short loping gait. "He always treats everyone like a nuisance, like we're all just gnats buzzing in his ears. Turns out he was just the gnat all along, pahahaha!"

Suddenly, he didn't feel so bad knowing that Ranma had fallen so far out of Akane's favor as to be essentially persona non grata to her. Sure, he couldn't be with Akane that way but it wasn't because of Ranma. He couldn't be the strongest in school because Ranma, the best fighter because Ranma and losing Akane to him would have just been the pits.

"I'm through being selfish, if she's happy without me that's enough for me!" Ryoga said aloud, even though it did nothing for the dull ache in his chest. "Everyone is trying to hold her down for their own reasons but I... I'm gonna be a person she can count on as a friend. I'll stay right there and have her back."

And if she found girls really weren't her thing...

"No, there's no more half hearted measure and bullshit from me. If I go about this being dumb, Akane-san will discard me too." Ryoga said, nodding to himself. That's right, she was shedding the things that kept her down and away from her true happiness. If he wanted to even stand with her...

"I have to get stronger, strong enough to apologize to her for being such a fraud." Ryoga said, eyes clenching shut with emotion. "It's time for P-chan to say farewell." Yes, he'd tell her once he knew the way to do so without losing her for good. One thing, let him best Ranma in just one way...!

"Wait, where the hell am I now?" Ryoga asked, realizing he lost himself in thought. It wasn't raining anymore.

"You're in Nagoya!" A passerby yelled, who then turned and decided that Ryoga wasn't worth paying attention to anymore.

"Nagoya huh?" Ryoga said, smiling a little. "I guess, I shouldn't rush it. I'll find my way back to you Akane-san, and when I do, I hope I'm man enough to be your friend." Ryoga twirled his umbrella dry and put it up.

Ah well, as long as he was here, might as well find something to do.

_Dearest Akane-san, how are you? Right now, I'm a little bit south of you but don't worry about me! I'm training right now you see?_ Ryoga thought as he sprinted off in a random direction full speed. _My goal? To be strong enough to tell you the truth you need to hear from me and to settle the issue between us. I will keep safe so that I can meet you once more and put away P-Chan for good. When will I be strong enough? Well that's the fun part of all this!_

"...and that's where it ends!" Akane said, reading the letter Ryoga wrote, though it lacked the part about P-Chan. The three were in the Tendo home's kitchen, puzzling over the letter and gift sent by Ryoga.

"What a crazy guy." Ukyo said, pursing her lips. Even if he knew Akane was out of his reach, unrequited love was bitch man.

"What do with this?" Shampoo asked, holding up a jar of red miso.

"Ah, a special blend of red miso you get in Nagoya." Akane said, feeling slightly nostalgic. _That's right, Mom was from there._

"Ooo, that's a good look you have there." Ukyo said, smiling to herself at Akane's face. "It says a lot about memories and such."

"Mom was from Nagoya, so she'd always come back from visiting family down there with this brand." Akane said, remembering the miso katsu she made was so sweet. "I was trying to get my sisters to go before the school year started but Dad wouldn't stop hoarding the money."

"So that's it eh?" Ukyo said, looking to Shampoo. "I'm in the mood to expand my repertoire today, how about you?"

"Shampoo want learn all the dishes of this country." Shampoo said, grinning brilliantly. "Because it the birthplace of Shampoo Airen so Shampoo love Japan!"

"I know where Kasumi hides Mom's cookbook." Akane took the jar from Shampoo and held it aloft. "I know what we're doing with this and exactly what you're going to learn."

"Can't wait." Ukyo and Shampoo said at the same time.

_Dear Ryoga, I don't know where you are so I can't return your letter, but thank you for the gift. I don't know how you knew what to get, but I welcome it all the same. Though I don't know about this truth you want to say, I'll at least hear you out._ Akane thought to herself as she, Shampoo, and Ukyo got up to raid Kasumi's room. _Regardless of the outcome and even if we must part ways; you'll always be a friend to me. I may get angry with you but I'm getting better everyday, so maybe that fated time will be closer than you think. Still, be careful out there, I know you're strong but I also know what a tiresome burden it is._

Under the awning of Nagoya Castle, with a smile that Oda Nobunaga himself would need an army to erase, Ryoga slept well for once.

* * *

"So you can finally move again?" Mousse asked as Ranma exited Kodachi's room with a confident gait.

"After two days of rest and replenishment." Ranma said, throwing up a quick guts pose. "Doc came in and gave me a clean bill of health and now it's time to figure out what to do."

"We're going after back after them, right?" Mousse asked, not expecting anything more than a declaration of war.

"Maybe, it's just," Ranma said, pausing as he looked at Mousse then to the floor. "I did some thinking while I was in bed and I wonder if it's even worth it."

"Didn't you say your pride was on the line here Saotome?" The Amazon said, as a spike of anger rose up through him. The prick thought he could just throw it away now?

"I did, but that was when I was giving too much of the credit to them for something so important." Ranma said, looking down at his clenched fist. "So what if they dumped me? It was seriously shitty you know? I couldn't say or do anything without a riot breaking out, not even take a shit in peace."

"I apologized for that when we first teamed up."

"You also said that apology after you nearly broke my legs."

The two glared at each other before Mousse relented.

"So what, this Kodachi shows some skin and some affection and you're going to run away?" Mousse said after taking a minute to consider his words.

"It's not that," Ranma paused before he changed his answer. "Actually, it's partially because of her and it's mostly because I just thought why would I want to go back to that? Revenge?"

"If it's revenge, it's because they just tossed you aside as if you were trash." Mousse said, not adding the part that if he had Shampoo he'd be long gone. "But vengeance is usually reserved for someone who is the good guy."

"You saying I'm the bad guy?" Ranma was ready to throw down at that, he wasn't to blame for any of this shit.

"It's just how the threads of fate have been woven is all!" Mousse said quickly, trying to deflect his anger because he didn't want to irritate the mistress of that monster in the yard. If she hadn't escorted him to and from the mansion he'd have been devoured.

"Go on."

"Shampoo followed you to Japan because you beat her. Ukyo Kuonji followed you over some grudge and you were engaged to Akane Tendo." Mousse began, weaving this together as fast as he could. "They met because of you, and as it appears, they became rivals over you. But, when you're gone and out of the picture, they gravitated to each other like they were being held apart by you instead of in place. Most everything they did that the others hated was over you, but they seemed abled to get along on some level if there was a reason."

"And you're saying I wasn't enough reason for them?" Ranma hated to admit it, but he had thought about it. If they were able to become friends and more this fast, it had to be that there was an attraction they had buried under the wake he had left. Remove the blockage and they had to admit what they hadn't seen...

"Well, they got rid of you instead of sharing you." Mousse said, relaxing now that Ranma didn't look like he was going to attack.

"Damnit, I tried man!" Ranma said, punching the air.

"Not hard enough." Mousse accidentally mumbled. He had meant to keep that to himself.

"What was that?"

"Well, again, they dumped you. If you had given it your all, you would have no reason to push back in." Mousse said, looking for Kodachi. Or that monster, she had to have ways of sneaking it inside.

"How was I supposed to do it then genius?"

"Not how you did it obviously."

Ranma glared at Mousse but refrained from attacking.

"Be honest Saotome," Mousse said, breathing a sigh of relief. "How long did you ever make any of them feel special, like they could feel like they knew how you felt without you saying anything?"

"I don't follow."

"Rather, how long did you go before doing something that pissed one of them off?" Mousse braced himself.

"Ah, so that's it." Ranma wilted some before the fire returned to him. "So I should just accept my role as the big bad evil dad and give up?"

"No, because I want you to continue." Mousse said, looking Ranma in the eye. "I get nothing if you quit."

"... Ah yeah, shit." Ranma said, shaking his head before laughing. "I'm just so used to people telling me to give up that I forgot that I was the one who suggested it."

"Honestly, it's too late to quit without one more try." Mousse said, having enough of the tension that had filled the air. "My plan is almost ready and I just need to tweak it a bit more before I start."

"So you'd just give Shampoo over to me?" Ranma asked, looking dubious.

"For now, but her father is my teacher and he can't even see her anymore." Mousse said, thinking of all the time he had spent under Razor.

"That old dude who cooked ramen?! No way!" Ranma said in surprise, having not even known he was Shampoo's dad. "What he'd teach you, the perfect broth blow?"

A knife whizzed by Ranma's head.

"Oh nothing out of the ordinary." Mousse said innocently as he retrieved the knife and hoped no one would mention it. "Just some useless kempo. Wouldn't even think of it."

"Ah, I get it." Ranma said, parsing the sarcasm as he used the hidden knife toss as a context filter. "So why'd he come to Japan then?"

"He's the old bat's grandson, so he probably came because she asked him to."

"Not an outsider?" That was surprising.

"Yeah, we can't afford to kill male children." Mousse rolled his eyes. "Be glad she never sicced him on you."

"He strong?"

"Stronger than you."

There was another pause.

"Seriously?"

"How many people have you literally torn to pieces?" Mousse shrugged, wishing he had been able to learn that technique. Alas, he didn't have the eyesight for it even with glasses.

"None but... it's just that he cooked ramen!" Ranma couldn't get over that.

"So does the old bat, she probably taught him how to cook it." Mousse sighed at this bizarre tangent.

"Ah." Ranma shook his head. "Still you'll push her into my arms?"

"I plan on taking her back, it's just that I want to beat you fair and square for her." Mousse was lying through his teeth harder than when he first offered to help. Fair and square were words of his opponents, usually squawked in anger when he outsmarted them.

"You know I don't lose."

"I recall three girls besting you easily without a single punch."

"That fight's just at intermission." Ranma smirked, before looking down. "I just need the motivation to get back into it."

"Did she change your perception of her so much?" Mousse had thought she terrified the living crap out of Saotome.

"Maybe I'm just... looking for an excuse to call it a draw." Ranma said, though his cheeks turned red. "It's just... she accepts that I'm bad at talking and worse with my feelings. My words don't fly back and hurt me, it's almost comforting in a way. I just thought she was crazy but..."

"You're just so deflated that you need any kind of moral support huh?" Mousse said, wondering just what Akane Tendo had done to him that had crushed his spirit so.

_I hate you... _Ranma turned away almost flinching at those words. _Ranma-sama, your Kodachi is here with your next meal_.

_Ugh, I can almost see him glowing now_. Mousse thought; face twisting into a disgusted look.

"I just don't know if victory will be better than 'defeat', that's all." Ranma said, not turning around.

"So you'll accept your role as bad guy and be defeated here then?" Mousse asked.

"Maybe."

"Hmph, go out and look at them for yourself." Mousse said, almost demanding it. "If you can look at them enjoying life without you and feel nothing, I will disappear from your sight without a word."

"So you're not going down without a fight huh?"

"Your loss is my loss, but your victory is also my victory." Mousse looked up at the ceiling and expelled his doubts. There's no way he'd be able to tolerate seeing them be so happy without him...

...right?

* * *

How many times had he walked down this path? Ranma wondered to himself. Alone or with Akane after some dumb adventure that was really extraordinarily stupid. The Saotome lad found himself walking towards the dojo alone, Mousse opting to let him go and find the answer to his dilemma.

Even now he could feel the ghost of her cling to the air on the ground, Ranma perched atop the fence from where he'd look down upon her. The hint of her smile, the beginning of her laugh, the sign that things would be okay even if today had sucked. Sometimes, it was those quiet moments between days where the two would linger together in silence that made it seem like this whole charade was worth it.

But those times were over, those things were no longer his to enjoy, he was locked out of that heaven as it were.

She was cute, unbearably so, and yet possessed a fierceness that bordered on animalistic. Akane Tendo was, to Ranma's sensibility, everything he could have thought of for a girlfriend. Good looking but a fighter, willing to do her best for him and able to motivate him when his spirits were low.

Maybe that's why he couldn't accept this whole fiasco and walk away. She was everything he could have wanted and more, but he'd been too scared to say it aloud. Like a wish that wouldn't come true if you spoke it, like she'd just up and vanish, leaving him alone again.

Plain as day he had said he didn't want her, but that was his paranoia setting in, there had to be something up after being dropped by Shampoo and Ukyo.

That something had been the results of the scars he never knew, the wounds that refused to close. He had thought her tougher, but perhaps he hadn't thought about it at all. He had been hurting and hurting her but he had no idea.

_I hate you..._ Those words burned into his mind and heart, sapping his soul and will to go on. _I'm tired of living for you, you stupid idiot._

"Tch, why should I be the one to blame? Like I wasn't hurt whenever she called me names and hit me." Ranma said, the echo of the words ringing hollow. It didn't hurt at all, which was why he could endure it. That's just the way Akane is right?

_I'm standing right here._ Ranma remembered what she said and subconsciously looked at the spot where she'd be glaring at him from. Always right there when he needed her, even when he made her mad and caused her to yell and scream.

"So that's it huh?" Ranma stopped at the end of the fence and looked forward, able to see the dojo from here. "I'm the heel right? The dastardly bastard out to ruin the hero's day? Just accept it and move on?"

Lose? Ranma Saotome surrender? It was almost enough to make him hurl! He'd walk away because Kodachi actually treated him right for once? Just live with the shame that he couldn't hack it?

_Ranma-sama~!_ Ranma almost smiled as he heard that echo in his mind.

"Yeah, that's right. She's upfront about her feelings!" Ranma said, gritting his teeth in anger. "She wouldn't hide her pain from me and tell me what's wrong!"

A silence hung over him after that declaration, as he tried to make himself believe that.

"Why not give up?" Ranma's face darkened as he balled himself up and crouched down on the fence. "I've already..."

No! He wouldn't admit that, couldn't admit that. Ranma Saotome doesn't lose!

"Can I do it? Could I look at that scene before me and be at peace?" Ranma whispered to himself, fighting the urge to wallow in despair.

Just a little more and he'd have his answer. Ranma sprang off the fence and dashed as hard as he could, making it inside the wall in mere seconds. He skidded to a halt and caught his breath, trying to find where they were.

"Aiyah!" The familiar cry of Shampoo wafted from the kitchen. "Airen is being Playboy again."

"I don't mind... ah!" Ukyo said, seemingly struggling from breath.

"Sorry, just seeing you two at work just got me a little heated!" Akane said, the sound of her walking away from someone reached his ears.

Were they really doing... that?

"There'll be plenty of time for dessert later sugar; you gotta let us finish dinner first!" Ukyo exclaimed, doing some unseen action that drew a sharp cry from Shampoo.

"Hiyah!" The sound of Shampoo slapping Ukyo on the shoulder rang out. "Shampoo rump not on menu!"

"But it looks so good!" Ukyo protested.

_They were all perverts,_ Ranma decided, turning pale a little. They even got Ukyo too!

"What was that about dessert being for later?" Akane teased, Ranma could almost see the smirk on her face. It was almost like she was completely relaxed now. Relaxed...

It hit Ranma like a ton of bricks then. He had always made her on edge, whenever she tried to drop her guard to let him in, he put her back on the defensive. Everytime without fail, like they were in a battle against each other.

_Uncute tomboy!_ That's not true; she was very cute, beautiful even! _Macho chick!_ So what? Ukyo cross dresses and he thought she was plenty feminine! _Can't even kick!_ What was he, five? And her kicks were great, never failing to send him flying.

"I was always... always...!" Ranma fell to his knees and pounded ground in frustration. No wonder she said she hated him, he never stopped cutting her down! "Damnit!"

He didn't say it loud and it was unlikely they'd come and check. But still, he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, burned it into his memories yet. The sight that were seal his defeat or reinvigorate his passion for glory. With a slow gait, he made it to the kitchen window and hoisted himself up to look into what could be hell itself.

"C'mon you two! If we don't at least get dinner done then dessert will make us sick." Akane said, her bright smile creasing her face.

That smile that was only supposed to be for him.

"I almost got this down, don't worry!" Ukyo said, laughing as she went back to cooking.

That laugh she always gave when he told a joke.

"Is going to be too too delicious!" Shampoo said, her determination to impress ringing through her words.

That same determination she had used in pursuit of him.

He let go of the window sill and could only shake in anger. It was like everything that he had gone through with them had been a lie. Like he had dreamt it all up and now he was seeing how their reality was since he didn't even exist to them.

All of that, everything, the pain, the joy and so much more were just like dust before the wind. He didn't exist anymore, like there wasn't a spot he used to fill and was now vacant. It was all just some joke? That's what he wasted part of his life on, bet his pride and heart on? Just some fantasy that existed in his head?!

Ranma shook in anger as tears of rage started slipping down his face.

He couldn't even save pride in being the vanquished enemy, the hated tyrant overthrown. He was already gone from their minds and their lives, the impact he had thought he had turned out to be nothing big at all. How naive and conceited he had been to think he could walk away with his head high!

"Me? The bad guy? Hah!" Ranma muttered to himself as he jerked his torso skyward. "As if I was ever in the fucking wrong here! They think they can just toss me aside like I'm trash?"

Ranma breathed heavily as he finally regained his feet. Without thinking, he started to sprint away at full speed, running nowhere in particular.

"This isn't just about revenge anymore. This isn't about anything else but making sure they suffer for their arrogance." Ranma declared as he ran on. "Let them think I'm the bad guy all they want, because here in the real world, the bad guys always wins."

Ranma skidded to a halt in front of Furinkan High and reared back.

"ESPECIALLY WHEN HIS NAME IS RANMA SAOTOME!"

* * *

Author Note: Ranma stands ready to fall, Mousse is ready for a brawl, and our lovely ladies just livin' that Teenage Dream tonight and every night. It's just what we do when we do do do~


End file.
